Matt, Hennings should correct the stock situation soon, they have the boards.
As for the burning, the most likely suspect is the wire between the two pickups. If your car derails and a pickup sits on an outside rail, you'll have a direct short through that fairly small wire between the trucks. I've had a number of passenger cars come in with that wire smoked.
The lighting module is indeed a drop-in if you already have the lighting strips. You wire the DC output to the lighting strip, and wire the track power to the AC input of the lighting module, job done. I stick the module to the ceiling of the car in many cases with DS foam tape.
