You can make the same argument why does C support #define then - why not just use the constants as and when you see fit?
[This quite plainly is not how most C Programmers see things - from my experience some tend to extend #define to abstract things to almost absurd levels, thus making some code harder to read than if it wasn't done that way, but I digress...].

Even with comments a Symbolic IR translation map will be much easier to read than one done with the old Hex values and comments and as Yang pointed out it allows people to swap maps - even for different IR controllers without having to reverse engineer the previous persons work and then re-engineer it for their remote].

Potentially if I like button A on my Rio Remote to the X and you like button B to do X, then all I have to do is change what symbolic' Button 'X' is defined as (from A to B) and the maps will work as intended.

Of course this is a trivial example but the rationale is still valid.