Well, I finally got it working! The boot issues I had from USB stick persisted, but it seemed like it was down to just 'luck of the draw' whether the box would read the stick or not, and it finally did
Even with the MOS timeout, it still was able to download the iso and install. Took a few hours, but did it.
The only issue that I now have is when I boot into MorphOS, I have to unplug the network cable untill I'm past typing the boot arguments in, otherwise I get a 'RRRRRR error: network timeout' and no boot.
I'm not sure what to do about that other than come up with the coin to reg MOS 2.4 so I don't have to reboot as much. Maybe an OF setting I can change?
Anyway, it's a pretty snappy little machine on the net-it won't be playing HD videos or anything, but in a lot of ways, its speed compares pretty favorably to OSX on way faster hardware.
I've missed having an 'Amiga-like' computer on my desk. It's good to be home