Is this behavior in help desk expected?

I respectfully disagree on one detail. In my setup the opposite held true, though I suspect it comes down to community size.

Thanks for writing this up. Bookmarking it — the kind of thing I will want to reference again in a month.

Could you say more about how you measured the result? I want to try this but I am not sure what success would look like.

Solid breakdown. The only thing I would add is to back up before making the change — better safe than sorry.