Where full means 1-bit instead of 2 (pixels are either on or off, no 2 grays in between), and lower framerate, yes. The 3900 (I meant 3900 before, not 9300...)s have something like 10 I/O pins you can use for whatever, but I run my own input with the BasicStamp, the VFD isn't involved at all in it.

Here's a video from early in development, just doing raw bitmap drawing at this point I think (and laggy, and pixel-doubling doesn't help, my VFD is 256x64 @ 38.4k to allow 4 empeg-sized screens of stuff). And some images of the construction and final setup. The thing that looks like the cigarette lighter is the joystick you see in the vid with the head of the cigarette lighter mounted on.