Actually, I've never given up the lead weight to add fan driven smoke to a brass engine. The lead weight is a necessary piece of the puzzle, removing that and the locomotive would probably have trouble pulling more than it's tender! 
I have shaved the weight in a couple to fit the smoke unit in, but I only had to take a couple of ounces off.
As for Lionel or TAS electronics, some of the Weaver stuff came with each system, that's why I wanted to see some pictures of the boards in the tender. I just opened up one of their brass models and discovered the factory TAS installation... oops! I was going to install cruise in it, but that idea went out the window.
