I happened to play this recently on the actual hardware because I felt like randomly busting out old gaming stuff and tinkering with it.

I like most of the graphic changes (mostly touching up of maps, buildings, etc.). But yeah, the sound quality is worse (though not unsuitable). I don't think you can do the doubling trick in this one. As far as I remember, the progress of leveling up is the same.

I know you figured your thing out, but it's cool that this thread popped up so close to me randomly looking back at stuff like this.