Irrlicht currently only supports opengl-es 1.x. I've just recently finished the remaining things such that the examples are now all running fine. cpasjuste has confirmed that he has all of them running (besides the obviously not working shaders examples of course).
Ports will be definitely much simpler this way, but of course cannot be guaranteed. Most of the demos and apps use, e.g., windows specific code just because the programmers don't care for such things. High-poly models are usually not so much of a problem, because they are seldomly used in released apps. Improper use of huge textures could happen more often. I can optimize such things in the driver, though, e.g. by scaling them down on the fly. But these things, and all the other optimizations that might be needed for optimal performance on the Pandora, will have to wait until I get the actual device.