Just a quick update on the subject, for anyone interested.
I was unable to find a solution to the problem myself, however I recently came across an article on James Chambers' vblog, who provided a quick start guide for the I96: Orange Pi i96 Getting Started Guide | James A. Chambers (jamesachambers.com)
I contacted him to know if he had my same (and everyone's) problems with the USB not working high speed and he confirmed the issue as well. However he dealt with the problem and mainly with the help of the findings of Gabor Hidvegi posted here on Armbian's forum he was able of providing not only a ready to install image for the board including all the known fixes, but also a repository to patch directly the original OrangePiRDA script files used to build the image: GitHub - TheRemote/Legendary-OrangePi-i96: Image that fixes the USB port on the Orange Pi i96 to use High Speed (480M) instead of Full Speed.
Using the image he provided, I was able to confirm that the little board, coupled with a DVB-T dongle, can be used as an ultra-low-cost ADS-B receiver (that was my original plan)
