Yes, the original port can be replaced/repaired or someone can grab the signal lines and abandon the front port entirely and wire it up to a new additional rear port. One word of caution that has been pointed out in many threads in addition to this thread is that the front port is NOT USB.
It may look like it and to make matters worse, there are cables made that will plug directly into that connector and a USB port on a computer but doing so will likely fry something and maybe beyond repair. The front port is actually a serial (RS-232) port that uses standard serial port signal levels.
Of course Uniden also sells a cable the will convert USB to serial that also plugs directly into the front port. Or they sell a cable that breaks out the front port back to a standard DB9 serial connector shell. That cable was also included with the radio.
I ended up splicing into the front serial port and ran a set of wires to an additional DB9 connector out the rear of the radio. That little serial port connecter they used on the front panel was just too fragile for my taste if I were to have something plugged into it all the time. So I duplicated the port into an additional DB9 out the rear. I did the same with the PC/IF jacks on my GRE radios or the RadioShack clones. I hate cables coming out the front of my radios! They get in the way, are prone to getting hit and broken off etc.
If a radio has no rear line out jack, I'll add one of those as well while doing my serial port mod. That comes in handy for using your own external amplified speakers or for recording at line level. I'll usually also add a true discriminator tap even on the Uniden's or GRE's that already have data outputs which are not discriminator level outputs. If there is room on the back panel, these extra jacks go there. If no room, I build a small breakout box with the jacks mounted on it but I still usually mount some form of connector so I can remove the entire thing if I won't be using it. A DB9 or HD DB15 in a DB9 shell will give plenty of pins to carry pretty much any signal you may need. Cutting the opening for a DB9 shell can be a pain though. After I manually cut a few DB9 shaped openings with a Dremel tool, I'd had enough and invested in a DB9 chassis punch. And later, a DB25 punch for those projects that required lots of signal lines.
The serial jack on the front panels of my 996's are still wired and active so I can do firmware updates but I usually have a permanent serial cable plugged into my new rear mounted front port DB9 connector anyway.
I'd need to get at the back of the radio if I needed to use the front jack so I could disconnect that cable before I could use the original front jack.
For my remote head, I simply built a long cable with a shield and two more conductors wired to a DB9 shell and a 1/8th inch stereo plug. The remote head only needs ground and the TX plus RX lines. It does not use any of the other signal lines available on a true serial port. I've ran the remote head over serial level signals well over 500 feet before. Or today, they sell serial to ethernet adapters and you could plug in your remote head halfway around the planet if you wanted too. I do it at work over a VPN sometimes. Getting the audio can be a bit tricky though.
I've since switched to using a small cable with two individually shielded pairs of cable in one jacket. One pair for the remote head data and the other pair to get the amplified speaker level audio out to the room I'm using the remote head. That works well thanks to Uniden using digital squelch and audio circuits that can be adjusted over the serial bus.
My remote heads are really running from the front port when I use them but I connect them to the DB9 connecter I spliced into the front port so nothing is hanging out the front of the radio.
I also used unused pins on the original rear port DB9 connector to supply power to my choice of GPS unit. I rewired all my GPS capable Uniden's for the same wiring scheme so my GPS would work when simply plugged into the radio.
I also found the needed front panel plugs and built some custom cables for the 396's.
If you extend your front port to the rear like I did, you just need to remember that you can't use both at the same time as serial ports cannot be shared. That's usually not a problem with the 15 or 996 models as they both have two isolated serial ports but sometimes, I wish they had three.
One for remote head, one for scanner control or CC monitoring if not using a discriminator tap and one for GPS.
I think someone built a box that allowed for the rear port to receive signals from a GPS at the same time the scanner could be monitored over the TX line with programs like ProScan set to the slower 4800 baud GPS speed.
I never messed with that idea myself and don't know if it worked.
You can build a box with a diode or two and 'sniff' what is going over your serial connection.
That can be used to find undocumented commands or for troubleshooting if the computer or radio are not talking. Or it could be used for the above idea of sharing a port with a GPS and some type of logging program at the same time.