Noooo!!
I missed Aaron's reply last week, so I'll send him an email. I actually tried my own mono hack and batch converted the samples of one of the trumpet patches using Wavosaur (stereo to mono using one channel, then convert back to stereo again to work properly with the kontakt patch) and it worked! The results were... mixed.
It actually didn't wind up sounding a whole lot different than the regular stereo patch. It seems like the impulses are indeed imparting a lot of their own sound onto it moreso than I thought they were. Go figure, they're impulses after all.
I think I'm just gonna live with it for now and not hold Aaron up any more, haha! I can't wait for 1.6!