Interesting Michael!
That seems to be a simple and effective mod!
What surprises me though is:
P.S. There are no undesirable side-effects (i.e. I don't hear audio from the mic in the headphones on SSB TX).
The schematic suggests that the mic signal?will be?fed back to the audio amp during TX, so I'd expect you'd hear your own voice through the speaker while transmitting SSB.
73 Allard PE1NWL