As I went back to basics and began looking at what the output was showing me, i noticed something. If I decrypted a value twice, I got the right entry. This is a fairly good indicator there was a problem with the python script that assembled my hacked ram data, and with one twist (changing the order) I generated a new table.

Immediately i was able to decrypt the lerdge firmware and see that it did appear to be valid code. All the strings decrypted perfectly.

The bootloader also decrypted fine.

Now I need a test subject with a lerdge x board who has already reset their bootloader to burn it on, and to do that, I reached out to the open lerdge people. 

We shall see what happens next.