Thanks for the in-depth answer! That process makes a lot of sense to me.
I was personally a bit sad to see Wounds disappear in S&F2e. Was that cut to make the game more compatible with the GLOG?
Changing the death system was mainly an issue of simplicity for me. I was really pushing myself to keep the rules as small as possible.
That said, I think you could absolutely swap in the old wounds system for the death roll. Combatants, rather than their d6 death roll benefit, can take +1 wound per chapter of combatant before dying.