I like what you are doing robtillaart!
Would it be possible to write a code that auto calibrates the "magic numbers".
I would imagine using two serial communication links. One link could be the hardware serial port that would send to the slave the baud rate to be tested. Next, at the determined baud rate, the master would send a byte or string that is predetermined. The slave would then adjust the timing variables (within an allowed range) until the string is captured successfully "x" number of times. Lastly, the slave would perhaps save the variable results to EPROM or send to the serial monitor.