Two phals in one pot?

[Olivia]

A couple of weeks ago I went to my very first orchid show, which I would highly recommend doing for all beginners Among the plants I picked up was a pot with two phals in it. The vendor said they normally get separated before sale but there wasn't time for this one. The roots, leaves, and blooms all looked healthy so I figured I'd deal with the question of separating them when it was time to repot. Unfortunately that time is now. A couple of questions:

1) Do I have to separate them? They've grown together like this to blooming and I actually like the look.

2) The reason I think I need to repot them before they're done blooming is because even though I was careful and thought I could handle the sphag they came in (until repotting) it did not work out. I can see a couple of the roots are not in good shape anymore. The crux of the issue is that I wanted to try them in S/H because they're already used to sphag so it should be less of a shock that it would be for the ones in bark... is it safe to transfer them now or do I need an intermediary step?