For the update, Ive a solution to my keyboard/joypad mapping issue. Found something called animicro which I can run simultaneously with spellrazor from my frontend (I could probably have it running always but avoiding possible interference with mame) and is working beautifully. Even better antimicro allows double click and hold configs so i can potentially get 3 mappings per button and as I have 8 of them Im almost there :)
Still makes console tricky but not impossible.
Cant get fullscreen on load to work yet but can live with it. Pic to follow, maybe.