Well after all this straightening everything out and doing several runs, with waza apparently working well, I'm slower than I was on the slow run I posted a screenshot of with no waza earlier.
I was only 2 seconds off my goal yesterday, now I'm 3. Getting a little tight now.
At this point I have no choice but to do a new fresh install on a different HD and compare the results. I don't know what the HD really has to do with my spi32m score though, but I'll find out soon if it's any different on a seagate barracuda than it is on my ssd.
EDIT: also I now see that you showed the PF size for the waza partition in the tutorial, I just wasn't watching close enough before.