So today my Bobas showed up. These are the 62g ones, with the clear "RGB" tops.
THANK YOU. These are perfect. Super silent. Quite tactile. I may not need heavier springs in fact, although if they don't break in I may take this apart again and lube the switches. I feel just enough scratchiness to be worth mentioning. The /dev/tty caps look amazing too. No pics yet because I still have some fine tuning to do.
Notes:
1) oh damn the Bobas have the two extra pins on the housings. We void warranties here, so out come the flush cutters. This turned out to be no problem at all.
2) RGBKB shipped these in a Ziploc bag inside a padded envelope. More switches than I'd like had bent pins out of the box, er, bag. I only lost one however, and that one I didn't notice that I needed to straighten. So, again, not a real problem. They also sent along a keycap and switch puller which was nice. I already had them, but more stuff is nice.
3) When removing the old keycaps, a couple switches came right out. Trying different switches did not change this, either Bobas or Pandas. After looking a bit I noticed that the ones that this happened to were right next to the screws that went through the top plate. On a hunch, I backed them out and then seated them lightly tight (couldn't estimate torque, but it was "snug" with three fingers on the handle) and that seemed to solve that problem. So, again, problem solved.
4) Why haven't I posted pictures? Well, this problem I haven't sorted yet, and may not until tomorrow because I'm tired and have to work tomorrow. I haven't installed the space bar from the /dev/tty set because something is hanging up and the return is nowhere near snappy enough. The same is true of the red enter for the numpad, although the grey one works fine. My operating theory is that it's post/stabilizer interference because this is ONLY happening on stabilized keys (the left shift feels a little draggy too, but like it will break in.) I'm using the space bar from the Cherry PBT set (it's actually a WASD ABS space bar that I glued more posts on to make it work on a Noppoo)
I'm assuming that I'm going to be able to sort 4) above and not have to ditch these sweet keycaps, in which case I'm going to pronounce this exercise a resounding success. Even in the process of typing this post I think I can feel the switches getting a little smoother, and the sound (or lack thereof) is amazing. If anyone complains about this board, I am going to bludgeon them over the head with it. My only negatives:
1) as mentioned, I need to address stickiness on at least two keycaps. This did not happen with the Pandas/Cherry keycaps, although I did have to take an X-acto knife to the epoxy on my modified space bar to get that to work, so I assume the fix for the new caps is the same.
2) backlight is wasted, although the subtle effect is actually pretty cool I've made the backlight around the regular keys yellow-orange, the grey keys a green-blue, and under ESC and both enters red. I'm not much for backlight motion effects, I just set it to static.
3) As I've mixed and matched keycaps, I don't have the symbols for the function layer on the F-keys. No big loss.
4) my one complaint about the /dev/tty keycaps is that the nav layer of the numpad is not shown. However these caps are so damn awesome I am going to see if I can live with these. I also have a set of grey side printed caps on the way, but I think that I likely will be sticking with these.
As for the combo of the Bobas and the GMMK - well, it looks, feels, and sounds pure class. Yes, this is now an approximately $250 keyboard. (yikes!) It also accomplishes what I wanted to do with my Filco far better than that board ever did. The big difference is, of course, the Bobas vs. the old Cherry clears. I am going to have to find my old SGI Granite and compare, I think this board will acquit itself nicely. I realize that this started off as gamer oriented hardware, but for someone who spends 60-70 hours a week behind a keyboard for a living and then stays behind it even more because I'm a nerd, this is great. My fingers are so very happy right now. Whatever's used for damping in the Bobas is accomplishing the task in a great, inobtrusive manner - as I've mentioned before, I've never met an o-ring I liked, but the feels of these switches is excellent. I would actually be interested to try this board up against something like a new Matias Quiet Pro, as that would be its obvious competition.
One question - is there a ready source for ultra-stiff springs? I think I would like to do what Cherry did back in the day and put a stiffer spring in the space bar switch. I want to say it was a grey switch there in a board with clears, and I'm used to that feel having used it for 10 years now.
Again, thanks to all for following along, and especially to @saltimate @Maledicted and @HungerMechanic for pushing the Bobas - at this point it's going to take a lot to impress me beyond these switches. I think the only question at this point is do I keep the switches I have or try the 68g springs when they come in. I'm a really happy camper right now.