Summary: a good board for a good price.
Aside from not working "out of the box" until you uploaded a "known bootloader" ?
Baite is responsible for the lack of documentation, though I was too impatient to try contacting them to ask what bootloader/baud rate they used. I probably should have checked the fuse settings with my USBasp - BOOTSZ would have narrowed down the possibilities. Or if I was more ambitious, read the bootloader code with the programmer...