Well, there goes my comfort level.
Did Avalong release their own firmware? Would it help or is this design completely different?
This is a completely different design. The only thing in common is they both have Avalon ASIC chips. The Avalon design does not have a micro-controller on board, my design does not have an FPGA. So their firmware is FPGA firmware and mine is PIC firmware. Due to this even the cgminer driver will be different. But this has all been known for 2 months now so it's not news to anyone who has been investing effort/time .
Has anyone put a cro or logic analyzer on a real Avalon? Without any of their hdl it is tough to know what the comms looks like. Not releasing their code is annoying, they could release what they can and we could check out the comms protocol even if we can't build chips. In a few months their ip will be useless.