Ah, hot air rework might be a bit beyond my capabilities… Though given the part reference and the board I figure some repair shop here in San Francisco might be able to help me out? I’d certainly love to be able to use the GPON SFP directly without the intermediary 2.5-to-10G switch. 
I’ve ordered one of these DFP-34X-2C2 GPON SFPs based on some of the information discussed in this repo. It’s capable of running at 1G and multiple 2.5G modes, so hopefully if the retimer is the only issue, it may be compatible.