Heh, I hardly think Secret of Evermore can help anybody learn culture or history.

What I don't get is if you spent three years to make this decision, why didn't you ever confirm if the PAL version does indeed have any bug fixes or not? Personally I'd assume not until I heard otherwise. I can understand wanting to get the PAL cart for aesthetics (well, in concept; I don't think US carts are that ugly and I prefer the way they're flat and can stack or line up neatly), but if you're going to play via emulation, why play a gimped version just because it MIGHT have fixes for bugs that you MIGHT (but probably won't) come across in the US version?

As for playing SNES games on a SFC, I only have experience with the vice versa scenario, so I don't know how exactly the SFC slot is or if a SNES cart could fit in it at all. But all you'd need is a pass-through device at most. With a SNES, you don't need anything at all since SFC carts fit just fine if you remove the two plastic tabs from inside the slot.