Your first solution is easier than my own version where you keep your Rev. batteries in, but I suspect that you'd have to pay attention to polarity when attaching wires. I'm wondering if you need to run a hot wire to the Rev sensor wires or if you just need to complete an open circuit. Have you tried this? Please let us know if you have.
My solution was to cut one of the wires to the servo, install a diode in the proper direction so that when you apply current from the gun's batteries, it doesn't fry the Rev board, and you choose the diode so it doesn't slow down the servo too much (if you wanted to live dangerously you could just match polarities of the power supplying wires and skip the diode). Then you attach the Intellifeed wires to the servo terminals along with the regular power wires from the board (with the diode inline). This way, when you pull the trigger on your gun, the paddle spins every time, and if for some reason the paddle can't keep up with your Rate Of Fire, the Rev board senses the gap in the balls and kicks the paddle in, at a faster speed (hopefully) so you get the best of both worlds. Also, if you either forget to turn the hopper on (NEVER happens, eh?) or forget to buy fresh batteries for the hopper, you can still be effective...your hopper paddle will still turn with every trigger pull...or so that's how it's supposed to happen
On the flip side, if you knock your Intellifeed wire loose (NEVER happens, eh?) when you flop and tumble to the ground, you're not screwed 'cause your Rev sensor will kick in and hopefully you'll eventually notice and re-attach the cable...when I used to knock my Intellifeed wire off, I would shake my gun and curse and it always took a comment from a spectator to make me realize that the funky wire hanging over my wrist wasn't supposed to be hanging
Oh, the reason I thought of the diode was 'cause on the old Rev boards, the power transistor (that drives the solenoid?) would always get hot and eventually fry, and the board would go down. yes, you could actually almost burn yourself on the heat tab sometimes.
Ray