I am defiantly willing to try to make a PIC replacement for the ULA. Unfortunately I'm unable to do so at the moment as revision is about to commence and I have *loads* of exams in less than a month. (Second year Uni, Electronic & Electrical Engineering) But, give me about a month and 2 weeks or so, and I'll have finished and be able to devote some time to this. Honestly I don't see it being too difficult. All it needs to do is monitor the battery level, battery usage and temperature, with a piezo alert output, the two multiplexed displays and obviously a signal back to the control box to give it the 'ok' to run. Might even be possible to do it in logic, i.e. no programming required...
It may be easier to make a new board than use the existing one, so I'll look into doing either or both.
I do think, however, that any work done on this should be released publicly (i.e. code & layouts). We don't want someone doing loads of work on this and then disappearing, taking everything with them, requiring someone else to do it all again (which by the looks of it has already happened once).