Messages

i.e. change it for everyone, submit for approval?  I'm happy to go that path.  I'll see if I can make it gracefully-configurable.

Patrick, as I mentioned, I have no interest in trying to reproduce this.  It definitely, and annoyingly, happened so I'm warning others, but to file an issue, I'd have to create another installation and go through that process again because I'm not willing to do this with my main system.  I don't have the spare hardware or time to do that. 
Consider it a warning to, as I said, document everything. 

[rowCount:[7,14,20,50,100,-1]]

The default row count of 7 for lists/reports is unusable. Others have asked about if it can be changed, ref: https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=19958.0, no answers.  But it should be super-easy to change...
The code is at /usr/local/opnsense/www/js/opnsense_bootgrid_plugin.js, or in the repo, src/opnsense/www/js/opnsense_bootgrid_plugin.js.  At around line 130, we have:
        let gridopt = {
            ajax: true,
            selection: true,
            multiSelect: true,
            rowCount:[7,14,20,50,100,-1],
            url: params['search'],
            ajaxSettings: {
                contentType: 'application/json;charset=utf-8',
                dataType: "json",
            },

How dicey would it be to simply move 50 to the front of that list in the instance code?  Are there any checksums or other checks that would flag it as corrupted?

I admire your faith in the process.  It is not infallible; it missed some non-plug-in settings.  You simply must not have had to rely on the settings it's missing in the current version. 

I'm a newbie at OPNSense, though better-than-average at networking.  Because I was replacing a Zyxel plus a Ubiquity EdgeRouter, which handled VLAN and PPPoE as well as firewall and VPN duties, I documented (nearly) everything and made constant config backups at each step.

Sadly, trying to get Wireguard working, I horked outside access.  Probably screwed up a firewall rule.  No worries, restore the configuration backup.

No dice.  It took quite a while to get that puppy working again.  I think it was a VLAN setting (Priority) that wasn't getting restored, but it might have been something else; certainly seems associated with the igc - VLAN - PPPoE train.  And, now that I have it working again, I have no interest in reproducing.

Anyhow, do not rely on the configuration backup.  Much to my amazement, a "successful" restore may miss some important factors.