@CO: Talking Learning Computer: It means you tried "k28", the older version. That one has no changes in MAME 0.254. It's "k28m2" that emulates the display now.
Weight Talker: imagine an analog scale, one with a large disc and a small transparent window for viewing the weight. MAME's dial controller is the disc. If you rotate the disc counter clockwise(left), weight increases. So, mouse control direction is correct.
Lite N Learn: Volume decay is not 100% accurate, but not bad enough to make me think it needs a netlist implementation. Yes, the mode switch can't be changed with a keyboard shortcut, it's a limitation in MAME. To change the switch state, you need to press TAB and go to machine configuration. *edit* oh, and mode = manual, is plain keyboard mode.
@Rik: Yeah, I sent you an email about Lucky Luke. It was for verifying the timing emulation, but I think it's not necessary anymore. Good to hear you're willing to donate those handhelds. The series "Star Castle" is part of, no I don't think the MCU is known, so it would be nice if you could send that one too. FWIW for Tiger's color LCD games it's also not yet known.