I feel like we had a discussion a while back about the Family Feud board where the original computer from Dawson's era was replaced mid run (it runs a bit faster in the later years most noticeably covering up and revealing the first person's answers). The Ray Combs' pilot seems like it was the same as the later Dawson years, but the series was much faster.
Are we sure the whole (or most) of the Family Feud set wasn't "remodeled" for Dawson's run? If you look at some of the light bulbs where they aren't perfectly even (noticeable around the score readouts), they seem to be exactly the same (both not perfectly even in the same way) - with the only noticeable difference to me is an additional row of lights along the bottom of the trilon, and they are synchronized much better on Combs' version.