I plugged and played it without really thinking about it when I swapped the engine on mine, but what's the black plastic cylinder in the nearside scuttle tray? Guessing it's a charcoal canister? If it is, my general experience of these is they can be binned off as they don't really do much. Is that the case on these? 

Yes it's the charcoal canister, there's no real need for it other than to reduce the evaporative emmsions from the fuel tank. I would leave it where it is if it was me.