Quick update:
I just bought the Kamaka! I went back for another session before the weekend and noticed something about the Kamaka that I hadn't noticed before -- the heel stamp date just so happens to be the exact day I first set foot in Hawaii. It was just too perfect and serendipitous and personal to let go, given that we stayed less than a quarter mile from the factory during our stay there, and it's so fun to think of this exact instrument being finished by those folks at Kamaka while I got my very first taste of the islands.
I'll do a new uke thread at some point with pics this weekend, but I thought that was a fun resolution to this question I posed!