> If I take the time to bring back to life a more period correct system with an actual IDE floppy drive would it read the disks more accurately?

It's worth noting that floppy drives (with rare exceptions like the LS-120) do not usually have IDE interfaces. In the PC space, floppy drives instead use, well, floppy interfaces. They're completely unrelated to everything that is IDE. (More specifically, they use floppy interfaces that are based around what the Shugart Associates used in the 1970s with their SA400 floppy disk drive -- but ~nobody says it like that.)

> One option for hardware is my parent's Leading Edge WinPro 486. The case looks to be in good shape but I have not opened the case to see the condition of the capacitors yet.

Cool! Way back then, we tended not to have so many problems with electrolytic capacitors. Boards didn't tend to use so many of them and the capacitor plague was not yet a thing.

It's possible that my risk profile is misaligned, but: I'd start by just turning it on and seeing if it works.

Feed it some floppy disks. See if they read.

If it shows positive signs of life, then: You can try your copy of Spellbound.

If that works, then: You can use the old machine to transfer the software to a newer machine. Methods vary (and that's a few steps out), but they usually involve the serial port on the old machine and a USB to serial adapter for the new machine. Sometimes, with a null modem adapter. (It's kind of a whole thing...and it kind of was way back then, too.)