As I have problems with irrecord crashing (haven't actually tried the recommendation I got on that bug report) I tried using the -u flag. It was a bit disappointing that it doesn't actually update but it wipes all buttons and you have to read these again.
Another odd thing is although I have named my file to remotename.lircd.conf the resulting file is instead remotename.lircd.conf.conf (with an extra .conf added).
The -u flag is not mentioned in help (-h), help has -h which is incredibly useful when you just started that... -v, -a, -f, -d - I thought -u is rather good as you don't have to go through the entire calibrating again after a crash.
I happened to find it here:
http://www.lirc.org/html/irrecord.html
The IRRecord-readme.txt included in the downloadable installation package is even more useless, almost no information at all, you'd think a copy and paste of the available instruction would be quite easy.
Suggestion: Why not keep the buttons already in the config file as well, unless it's overwritten with the same button name.