I think removing boards for transit is going to have a higher chance of board damage than leaving them in.
unplugging everything, plugging back in, and possibly getting pins bent during any of this, or plugging back in wrong,...
all of those can do more harm than good, and take the legs off when transporting.

Personally I don't think removing the boards is enough. I also like to remove the wiring harness and package it separately to avoid getting freyed wires and loose connections.

You transported a pin on legs and worry about the boards? You are an idiot.

Your boards weren’t scrambled the connectors probably all came loose. Just make a habit of checking them when you set it back up.

These were designed to be moved a lot but so don’t worry about it.

Unless it’s an old Gottlieb where the boards are literally held in with old, brittle plastic standoffs I would leave it alone. Even in that case, if a board came loose the wiring harness would pretty much hold it in place.

I'm going with dumb idea.

The safest place for those boards is inside the game.

The same goes for backglasses....I've seen people remove those to move the game and I'm like...why?!

On a game I'm picking up--if the glass tubes on the displays are no longer adhered to the PCB, I'll tape them down temporarily to keep them from bouncing around and/or whacking the backglass. I'll then fix those properly later after I bring it home.

Other than that, everything stays in the game as-is.

Maybe secure the game itself better in your vehicle so it doesn't slide or bounce?

In my vehicle, I add padding (cardboard and blankets) so that it doesn't move around too much. If I'm hauling in a trailer, I strap the games to the walls.

This is true, but they are also very repairable. At this stage, if the board hasn't had a complete work through, it's not a bad idea to pull them anyway. Get those headers reflowed or replaced where needed. New caps, check the bridges. I can see rough transportation breaking those through hole traces on the large caps and causing issues. I'm with Levi and Force. Everything stays in the game during transport.

I don't want to vote that the OP is an idiot, but I don't think pulling the boards out is a good idea.
More likely that something gets damaged or connected wrong that way.

You are telling me you are packing up fully working WPC games, and then moving them, and then when you set them up, your driver boards no longer work? And you are 0-4 on this?

You must be the unluckiest guy in the entire hobby. I've probably moved 200 WPC games and that's never happened to me.

Now that is really good advice.