My advice was to stick with what your tuner recommended.
If I was doing your tuning, and asked you to do something, and you chose to go elsewhere... well that would be the end of that. All those datalogs for nothing.
I think I know whats happening here, but the tuning and running in open loop is adding a whole bunch of variables, who knows whats been changed and whether its correct or not. Only Dave knows as running in open loop is his thing. Sounds like the firmware has been corrupted to me.
So, the tuning portion has been awesome up until the point he asked you to spend money?
I thought this was what you asked:
This is more likely what you meant:
Obviously my advice and your tuners advice are not valid.