Quoted from Homepin:You can't seriously believe it is as simple as swapping the motherboard? Good luck if you try that. Tell it to the guy with the bricked FT. Obviously it is not as simple as some on here are trying to pretend.
FWIW there are some posts in the JJP forum about using a different motherboard. Keith says in theory it should be fine and at least one person tried it and had no issues with it. A TH/DI motherboard is higher speced then WOZ but still works in WOZ.
Having said that I totally get your point and all of these un fixable boards really worry me. Nice to be able to pull out a 25 year old board and have confidence it can be repaired pretty easily.