Don't fret. Here's the update:
So I contacted their tech line. We had a good 20 minute conversation. The short story is, the rate of compression and rebound you're measuring really has to do with the seal drag, and not the valving. It's not seeing the same inputs as it would with full vehicle weight and instantaneous bumps. Moving it by hand or letting it come up on it's own, is not affecting the bleeds. My "test" really wasn't an indicator of an issue with the shock.
Furthermore, the person I talked to happened to be a MS3 owner! We had a nice discussion about the lousy bottom shock mount (which I noted myself during the swap). If you own an earlier 5, take a look for yourself. The shock is basically compressed in a metal box by a bolt. Therefore the bolt not only has to be torqued enough to deform the bracket and close the gap to the shock. The gap is so small that it'd be hard to fit a shim in there, so it's enough that if the bracket doesn't deform, the shock can move whatever clearance is available side to side and up down on the bolt. He also said, even an impact gun won't be enough. Which is probably what Mr. Mechanic used when he installed mine. You need to get a breaker bar and torque till you see it bend.
So, I reset the shocks an equal number of rotations from full soft (I think I did 180 degrees). (He recommended for a 5 with stock springs, not to go too much from "full soft" as it'll still be considered better performing than stock shocks). Cranked the living snot out of the bottom bolt (could see the bracket deformed), did the final tightening of the upper nuts with full vehicle weight (I recommend this), and the clunking went away!
Rides really nice, and I can't wait to do the front (although I have to, since I'm making sure everything will be replaced by buying the parts myself). Hopefully there won't be any issues with them doing the front.
BTW, having done the rear 3x now myself, unless you make more than a shop's hourly rates, do the rear and rear swaybar yourself. All you need is a floorjack, jackstands, and basic metrics tools (wrenches and sockets)... oh and a breaker bar!
The other nice thing he told me is, although the rears could not be designed adjustable on the vehicle due to the factory setup, the front struts still are! So I can at least tune those at the turn of a knob even after they're installed. That set my mind at ease, as I was a little concerned that I might not like whatever first setting I tried. And you certainly don't want to have to remove struts just to change settings (way more work than a shock).
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