Following up, I finished this job and it was a royal pain. The Dorman part is nearly identical in all the ways that matter. It has the correct pin count, though there is slight cosmetic difference on the face that mounts to the HVAC doors, but it still functions perfectly. Only time will tell if this is a quality fix. Be prepared to sacrifice some skin and flesh. Removing the knee airbag would have made it a ton easier, but none of my sockets could access the nuts. You'll need a really skinny/thumb sized 10mm deep socket wrench or some kind of long reaching box end/ratcheting tool, and nothing i had could fit and maneuver around the wiring and other obstacles in the way. Removing the brake pedal sensor nets you minimal gains because there are still metal tabs and bends blocking access, but it might be just enough for the right tool.
I suppose that I could've ran to the store to look for what I needed but I decided to test how far I could get through the steering column cowl instead. This method is maddening enough to make you go buy a Honda. I have small hands and skinny arms (what can I say, i'm a wimp) and I had to bend, fold, twist my body to reach in there and do this nearly blind. I had to do a combination of looking through the bottom, and snaking my hands through the front to work on the bottom screw. and then i switched positions, change hands and plant my face into the shift knob, and blindly go after the top screw. The nice thing is, if you get the correct part, no modification is needed of the keyed slot.
Final thoughts: I could not tighten the top screw in all the way. It got really stuck around half way point. Because I was screwing into plastic, I left it as-is, to not strip any threads in the plastic (this was an error in my part, see the following post for more info). Also once the new part is in, before you tighten all the screws and reinstall the cowls/air bag turn the car on and test all the HVAC modes. All that blood, sweat, and tears you don't want to button it up and realize you got it wrong after the fact. If this is your first time, you'll want to budget at around 2 hours going through the steering column. GOOD LUCK!