It doesn't provide any means of curve manipulation or gamma / levels control which is what I was hoping to regain.
Yes it does. Admittedly Vuescan has a clunky interface but allows essential image manipulation. I have 3 different scanners, 2 Nikons and 1 Epson flatbed, operated through one Vuescan interface (and one license) which makes learning it worhwile. No need to buy different Silverfast versions per scanner.
Pro version is colormanaged, does decent colornegative scanning, is great in bulk scanning and supports "scanner-raw" workflow to name a few functionalities.
Again it is quite clunky so you need to spend more time than just download and dismiss it shortly thereafter.
Jaap