You captured it well. It’s hard to emulate without a joystick because the heart of vector synthesis is that two-dimensional zero-sum dance; as one oscillator goes out, another one goes in by the same amount.
The P08 should be good at this, because (as I recall), the oscillator mixer is more of a single balance control, with equal amplitude at center.
The only vector synth I ever owned was a Wavestation, and I regret that I didn’t use the vector synthesis capability enough, obsessed as I was with wave sequencing.