Dear David,
A nice read in which one feels you know whereof you speak because of the elegance and ease in the flow of ideas! You single out the fact that no one can can write a discrete version of the Standard Model because of the need to express its chirality. Since fqxi is devoted to asking fundamental questions that remain unsolved in physics, can't we simply say that the Standard Model is far from being the last word - a simpler and more powerful theory may entirely supplant it one day.
Something similar may have already happened to the the "no-go" Nielsen and Ninomiya theorem proving that chirality cannot be represented on a lattice. I refer to this admitting the technical aspects are beyond my understanding, but the author claims he has done so: Weyl Neutrinos on a Lattice: An Explicit Construction.
I would be honored if you look at my qualitative and incomplete suggestions for a lattice theory of everything in which chirality is built in at the most fundamental 'building block' level: a universal lattice of identical dielectric nodes spinning mostly in one direction transferring angular momentum in units of (h). These ideas are in my present fqxi contest contribution, and also in the earlier 2005 Beautiful Universe paper on which it is based.
With best wishes for your success, Vladimir