My Bendmaster DLX needs to go..

Would it be sacrilege to replace the Bendmaster Deluxe tremolo on my all original 1988 Corsair XA1440BK? I can't keep the Corsair in tune so thus can't get it to intonate right due to this old and awkward Bendmaster. I prefer a hardtail, but can't think of a way to convert it without leaving a big hole, drilling new extra holes for a tail piece, or having an ugly patch job over the hole. Maybe a newer REAL Floyd Rose or Kahler would fit..I'm not sure. Not much experience with tremolos. The 1440 is in VG to EX shape, it just has some oddities that cause tuning/intonation issues like the Bendmaster and the odd nut locking system that is just plain screwy. What do y'all think? I have other guitars I play, Schecters mostly, but would still like my kinda rare Corsair XA1440BK to be playable. Thanks!!

It sounds like you need a professional setup, not a new tremolo. Tuning and intonation are two separate problems. If it doesn't stay in tune I would think nut binding would be the problem, not the tremolo. And fixing intonation is pretty straightforward though there are several things that can throw it off (nut slotting, action, saddle distance, string gauge, truss relief), but I can't see how any of those are directly related to the tremolo type. If you are near Chicago I can do a setup for you, but really I think a setup by an expert or luthier would be the best course of action (and cheaper in the long run).

This.

Bendmasters are no different to any other vibrato bridge of the era, with the caveat that the stringlock baseplates are not made of a particularly robust material, and need care when nipping the lockplates up.
Yours is a Deluxe, yes? So the radius of the saddles is set to the fretboard radius so that’s easy enough!
Make sure that the knife edges are still keen; dull pivot points will drive you mad because the bloody thing just won’t return to equilibrium…
There’s no great mystery to setting the intonation on the Deluxe, either; it’s simply fiddly and time consuming - patience is most definitely a virtue. You have to loosen the Allen bolt in front of the roller saddle and move the entire assembly forward or back and tighten it up again, tune to pitch, then check it again. Rinse and repeat until you’ve got it about right…
This is all done with the stringlocks loose; they are the last bolts to be nipped up when setting up a Bendmaster…

Tuning stability is, as stated, quite a different beast to intonating the thing; check the contact points to see if there’s any string binding going on - I use a tiny amount of a silicon grease at the contact points and have never had any trouble. Strings binding in the nut shouldn’t really be an issue when using the fine tuners, but could well be an issue when doing the coarse tuning - check this for binding very carefully…

We’re here to help, chap - ask questions!!