Oh man wait, I think I figured it out! stwert, you'd mention using a different UV projection method and I guess mine must have been set on the wrong kind of projection, when I selected planar, it seems to have fixed it.

Using the same UV edges, Now my UVs look like this:


Which is maybe still messy right? I think it might be still usable, but nowhere near as confusing as that last cut. *phew!*

Thanks again guys!