Octal latches were used to provide high current drive, vs the 4-6mA of a shift register Nick.
If you drive the anode info and cathode at the same time, and use the cathode OE to actually turn on the column, should end up looking like a normal display.
I'm thinking Paranemertes is just missing something real subtle in the loop code.
That and not understanding about having the anode info for each column coming from an array, vs creating it all on the fly.