Thanks, somehow I missed this thread in my search.

Thinking more on the matter I found a solution that has been glaring me in the face this whole time. I can just edit some wires on the cable going to my lcd screen, and thus rename ports. Luckily I happen to get at least the upper 4 bits of portb on my interface.

However, I am still interested in making a user friendly 'all-in-one' lcdoutX routine for future problems if they come up.