Good work on the mod djozz.
Are you certain that the new driver is not a buck driver? (and maybe the old driver too?) The new driver appears to include a large coil, a large capacitor, sense resistors, and two DPAK items. Since diodes are available in DPAK layout the driver could easily have an FET and a diode on it. Together a buck controller IC, this completes the list of normal parts included with a buck driver.
See ImA4Wheelr - Driver Info: HX-1175b & HX-1175B1 (Pic Heavy) for another example where we initially thought there were two FETs but it turned out (post #8) that it was a diode and an FET.