Quick range test in my house with the receiver laying in the worst position possible, face down on the carpet. Works from one side of the house to the other through 4 walls, about 50ft. Looks like the high gain version will likely be quite pointless. The aftermarket controller is decent enough but the diagonals are a lot more sensitive than the original, might be good for some games but it makes crouch sliding in mario a precision operation, luckily it looks like you can swap the D-pad in from the original controller if it bothers you.
Making a board that fits the original controller might be a bit more difficult than originally imagined as I've just discovered there are different revisions with different pin placement.
