It would, but in my mind it's wrong to snatch the older plates just to place them on the newer machine. The striated chrome plates were introduced around 1950 and sort of belongs there
The earlier 15s tend to have nicer gold decals, even the simpler ones, with more of a clean shine. The later decals often looks a bit like yellow paint. Either way, people build, rebuild, scavange parts, refinish, etc., but if the 15-88 is in nice conditon I lean towards keeping it intact. There's plenty of worn 15s to pick appart.
I think the 15-88 with the stitch length lever can be rebuilt with the potted motor parts as well. When you have rewired a motor once, it's considerably easier to do it the second time. It's not a very big project, but I would set aside a couple of hours for it since the motor might as well be cleaned and regreased. A belt driven motor isn't nearly as much fuzz as a potted motor, just remember it probably takes different size carbon brushes and grease wicks.