Despite never having made a Gouda style cheese (although I have done many washed curds), I have a few things I kind of disagree with your initial setup.
When they get to the right consistency (which I understand means pH, I use a grip test)
I think this is likely incorrect. There are 2 aspects here: there is the consistency of the curd and there is the pH. The consistency includes the curd size, the amount of moisture and also the structure of the curd itself. Does it have a "juicy" center? Does it have an even consistency? Does it have a drier than normal consistency? That why you stir. If it were merely pH, then you could just let it sit there.
This is particularly important in a Gouda style because you are washing the curds with warm water. This not only takes away lactose, but it literally sucks whey out of the curds. Because the water outside of the curds is hotter than the whey inside the curds, the whey moves outside. This dries out the curd. The speed that you add the water is crucial because it determines how fast you dry out the curds.
and then the next morning you brine the cheese
While this is technically correct in some ways, I think there is a bit of cargo culting here (not on your part necessarily, but on the recipe writers). You salt when the pH is right, not the next day. I've heard descriptions that a Gouda style will "bottom out" if you leave it overnight resulting in no lactose left at all. Having run the numbers a few time recently, I don't think that's actually likely. I think that the Netherlands has historically been chilly at night :-)
There is so much I don't understand about this stuff. One of the things that blows my mind is that it appears that the pH that you drain cheese at actually changes the structure of the corresponding cheese. For example, if you have a drain a cheese as a pH of 5.9 and salt it at 5.2, it will have a different texture than cheese drained at a pH of 6.4 and salted at 5.2. How? Why? Or maybe I'm wrong :-)
In the same way, I think that how the cheese drains is likely quite important. Draining at low temperatures rather than draining at high temperatures probably changes the structure of the cheese. So the "leave it overnight" may be important, but it's not the "overnight" that's important. It's the temperature -- it just happens that it takes 8 hours to acidify to the right point at that temperature.
I don't have answers to your questions, I'm afraid. I think I likely just gave you more questions. But basically, the only way to realistically find out is to try it.