This is all consistent with what I expected - so now we just need to know if Jared's recent change will help - and it is unfortunate timing that I can't test it just yet.
Chris's conform test is good info and it helps convey that only a few "seconds" of error in RA (which corresponds to clock time) gets multiplied by 15 to become arc-seconds of error in the sky. His results show less error in dec. than RA - and that is consistent with the challenge of landing at the right encoder values at the right time because the sky is moving. It's like a missile with perfect gps hitting a moving target.
Unfortunately both reports from Chris and mahaffm don't show how repeatedly it misses by the exact same amount in ra and dec - but I think that for my mount it is fairly consistent. This isn't a criticism of conform or anything - because it is doing its job well. It's just that to know if Jared's change has a chance to work - the actual miss value in both ra and dec would need to be fairly repeatable. But I think it is for my mount.
Frank