Yes, what's called a Ge channel here (new one on me!) is a fully G series channel strip but with an "E" equaliser, I think it's a 242? Nice combination. (Personally I prefer the '02 equaliser, but then I'm a much better electronics engineer than I am sound engineer
)
I expect I've said somewhere else here that when Paul and I designed the G series (292) eq we never expected a whole desk to be fitted with them, they're great for certain things but too powerful much of the time. (We were trying to emulate the Focusright EQ, but the gain controls on that are rather bigger, and so rather more sensitive, than you can get on 4k desk!) But Chris Jenkins and Colin Sanders decided (probably quite sensibly) that this would be far too complicated to market, so decided on the simpler approach of saying a G series desk would have G series EQs, but you could have other EQs as an option.
I also like the old "01" transformer mic amps, in fact I've still got a batch of the transformers from them which I occasionally build into mic amps, but they are definitely not "clean", the transformer just isn't big enough not to distort with high level bass. So because our aim was always to keep the signal path as clean as possible they sadly had to go when we did the G series upgrade.
I'd completely forgotten about the line-in-to-meters mod, thanks for reminding me! Nasty bodge, but we did fit it to a few desks in the mid 1980s.
Enjoy the desk! it's fantastic that these are still living on.
Cheers,
Andy Millar