There might be an interest if one could add a relative function (the main point missing) to the existing software.
That is already done. Despite publishing the info and a patched rom, I'm not aware of anyone else even trying the patch.
Hi
Looking more closely at the pinouts of the 8039 and 8051, they are incompatible. Bad idea that I hadn't researched before posting.
Designing a daughter board to replace 8039 on the digital side would not be excessively difficult.
Rewriting the firmware in a high level language would require the most effort. It looks like Ghidra could be a big help with that process.
I am thinking that Ghidra would be helpful fully understanding the ADC code running on the analogue side. There maybe some gold nuggets in that knowledge that could possibly enable more capabilities.
This would be one of those projects that never quite gets to 1m subscribers.
This would be one of those projects that never quite gets to 1m subscribers. 
1 milli-subscriber is probably realistic