Dave,
Original: downunder
On the piston, the only evidence of any wear was the beginnings of the ring you usually see close to the crown. Most of this was on the transfer side of the piston with only a hint of it beginning on the exhaust side. The photo shows the transfer side. There was no detectable play in the wrist-pin bosses in the piston.
The liner was starting to show signs of smoothing out because the cross hatching was getting faint. One area between the front transfer and the boost port had taken on a very high polish like a mirror.
And that is not wear... Neither is a loss of 500 RPM...
Well, you can define 'wear' any way you like...
You argue that a rich, four-cycling break-in will not harm any engine, yet you use the technique from my thread to do the break-in for your own tapered-bore engines.
This is because despite of what you write here, you know that my break-in thread, which is based on George Aldrich and other past and present model engine paragons, as well as on my own experience, is nothing but correct.