"It sounds to me like Brian inherited it, and now wants to play with it. "

Well said.

Brian must by now be thinking that he has committed some kind of crime, going by the responses.

It is just that 8255 is a legacy chip, difficult to configure and could go out of fashion - maybe. So the emphasis to shift over to current generation chips. So what is current ? - that depends on what your exact job is.

Raghu