I love MVBs with an aftermarket floor shifter, reverse or forward pattern. I prefer not to mess with kick down linkage or cables. I like shifting manually but having no clutch, it's a lazymans A833 lol. My car is a driver, my sweptline will be driver too with same setup.
For me it would be no choice, I would put the 727 in ASAP. $200 is a good deal if he knew what he was doing on the rebuild.
Maybe he has a cheap loose converter kicking around as well?