We used basically these exact LED's last year. Our solution was to just cut off the ir receiver and put a female pwm connector on one side that was cut off and a male connector on the other so we could re-attach the ir sensor if needed. This would allow you to still be able to change the light color/pattern between matches or change other settings. You could use any kind of connector really but we decided to just use pwm's because they are easy to use and we had a bunch of extras. And yes it does remember the last pattern that was selected.
Our robot last year
http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/p.../2012/1469.jpg
http://www.edmonds.wednet.edu/cms/li...%20cropped.jpg
This is actually what I will be working on this weekend. I can give you more information on how to make everything work if you want or take pictures of my finished work on sunday or monday.