Hi BuZz,
Thanks for the reply. I believe it is a Retroarch issue in both cases on certain cores, as using a keyboard directly plugged into the Pi (removing the Picade from the equation) suffers the same response and mapping issue. You are correct, I think that experimental firmware is for the retail boards, although in the video posted in the thread, he does mention it'd be pretty easy to make the same firmware available for the kickstarter version, just a few changes are needed.
I agree with the Amiga emulator, I only tested it quickly but when I realised I couldn't even navigate the menu without a keyboard, I moved on for now. I am trying to keep my Picade setup as compact as poss and everything else is working great. I'll revisit it later, I hope one day it is ported into Libretro or developed further. Some games run really well.