Looks so much more tidy now with the new flexible wiring on the AV port. I also took the time to clean the PCB from the brownish flux residue using "Kontakt LR" flux remover.
I've now found the cause for the shorts. Do you see the black wires near the tantalum caps in the lower left? Just where they go down the PCB to the underside, their PVC coat is slightly worn. Thus they are just ever so slightly touching the metal shield once the PCB sits on the screw mounts.
Using a Proxxon Micromot 50/E, I cut away a portion of that metal shield and sanded it.
The black leads got additional isolation using elec-chicken's tape.
It werkz!
I tried both Hucard and CD games. They play fine, BUT there is one issue left.
The volume for Redbook CD-audio is pretty low. Either I've managed to damage one of the caps, or there is a potentiometer for turning up the CD-audio volume. Please let me know what you guys think I should look for when examining the board next time.