The transplant operation went well, I think. The NUC7i5BNH motherboard is now in the Akasa Newton S7 case. It all seemed straightforward.
I used the thermal transfer pads supplied in the Akasa kit - in the video that Marius posted, the guy said that he eventually used thermal paste for better heat transfer properties. That may well be more efficient. The CPU in my Akasa is running warm @ 50 degrees C, but it’s well within operational limits I believe, so I will probably keep it this way.
I used the recommended Crucial memory, but substituted an Intel 600P 128GB m.2 SSD in place of Roon’s Transcend recommendation.
The only downside of the new system is the laser-like brightness of the blue power indicator. It’s so disturbing, I’ve now built a touchscreen control panel to put in front of the Akasa. The panel uses the touchscreen software being developed by @spockfish