I think you might be being a little quick to judge the RPi1, my first WeeWX machine was a RPi1 and it downloaded historical records from my Davis station just fine. Only reason to upgrade was needing more processing power for faster report generation. There's two sides to this equation, the other being the weather station, there we've seen other stations before that take their time in dishing out historical records. Then add a remote database to the mix...
Short answer is maybe. Sure you may be able to change the operation of the driver if you are that way inclined, only problem is most station manufacturers/rebadgers tend not to share to many details on how their station operate/communicate. Try your laptop, if no difference then I suspect there will not be a great deal you can do, if there is a difference then an RPi upgrade may be in order.
Gary