So for anyone waiting on the answer for this with bated breath!
The answer is YES!
The board does appear to work, and does appear to mimic things pretty precisely. The replacement was straight forward and pretty easy to handle, the connectors actually feel stronger and more secure than the original board I pulled out.
The steppers definitely seem to have a slightly different tone to them but other than that it works fine.
I haven't done any observations with this yet, but I'll report my findings back into this thread the next clear night I get.
There's another advant