OK, got this to work, not sure what I did. I ran for a bit in simulation mode just so I could understand the interface better and then picked the Galil controller again and it seems to work OK now (or better anyway). After I got it to work, it switched to the USB interface and as suggested, it does work a lot smoother. This could be helped if the plugin used the intelligence of the Galil controller to do some of the work....
I still can't get it to "home" or reference but perhaps it is not supported or I just don't understand something but that will be a different thead...