Great master clock you have build there.
It is an excellent effort you mastered there and a fabulous end result.
I agree with you that the challenge of building something from standard IC's is a lot more fun than putting a PIC IC in it.
OK it's a lot of work but who cares, isn't electronincs a hobby anyway.
I have built about 7 * TTL clocks 10 years ago which serve very accurately in my place or family members places.
A lot of work breadboarding it all together with the 7447, 7490, 7413, 7408 and 7400 IC's.
The hardest part is the suppression of spikes on TTL, because the IC's themself create dips on the 5 Volts DC supply. so decoupling capacitors are recommended for each IC of about 100nF.
I take some pics and will post one or two of them later on.