I'd go ahead with any mA/h rating. It's the voltage and charging tolerance that's important, and none of that has really changed in 30 years.
If you solder in a battery pack, definitely go with the AA size. If not, I'd strongly recommend the replacement cells with solder tabs. A pack doesn't fit that space very well. I'm also not sure if the NiCd cells are wired parallel or serial - I believe the later Li cells are serially-wired.