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As listed above, what are some must-have modifications to the adventure, especially for a Play-By-Post game?
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Depends on the players. If they're not heavy into roleplaying and NPC interaction, the long period of sneaking around and trying to win friends can get boring pretty fast.
There are varying reports about the deadliness of rum rations, and of the flies on the island, so those may also need to be tweaked, depending on your party makeup and their Constitution scores.
I'd look into naval combat and the many threads on that. Its not too exciting as presented and has only 1 PC making rolls for the most part.
Never played it PbP but this campaign seems to be a forum paradise or nightmare, depending on how you run it.
S&S is very roleplay focused, at least the first book is. Some groups may complain about the slow pace and the lack of many fights / dungeon crawling. However, I found very diffcult to simply rush the part aboard the Wormwood. The passing of days is necessary to build tension, introduce the characters propely and, most of all, allow your PCs to make allies that will help them at the climax. I think it's best to find players that would enjoy this style of gameplay than to alter it completely - a slowbuildup is the point, after all, so make sure to explain it clearly to your players before you begin. In PbP perhaps it's best to have fewer players, so each day doesn't last forever, or stipulate a real time limit for the posts, using ship actions as milestones. You have the opportunity to go deeper on character development as they get allies, though, and the splitted party at this point that many players complain about may not be a big problem for you.
The first book is also very skill heavy. If you go slowly with the narrative, I recommend using the staggered advancement rules of Pathfinder Unchained. That allow PCs to distribute some skill points before they level up. Since they're supposed to stay at level 1 during the long discriptive part, using the staggered rules allow those with less skills points (looking at you, casters) to contribute more.
I would totally modify the rum rations. Can be very brutal, but is mostly annoying after a while. I made a softer version of the rum and applied the proper rules only when PCs would drink heavily.
Naval combat is not very good, however you don't use it on the first book. The only part you have shi warfare, is best to just ignore the rules and deliver a good narrative, then skip to the part where PCs participate more. It's worthwhile to alter ship combat for the rest of the AP though. The Razor Coast books (by Frog God Games) have nice alternate rules, if you're willing to use 3rd party. Also check this thread.
I would also do something about underwater combat. It's deadly without magic, ridiculously easy with magic, and can get boring fast. Tone it down when they reach part 3 and use different environment challenges instead.
Not a must-make modification, but I recomment updating some enemy NPCs character sheets using new rules / classes from more recent paizo publications.