Oh man, that EXACT same thing happened to me. I bought a fancy Bosch one for a kitchen remodel and it would just flash error messages at me if there was ANY direct sunlight in the room. Ended up borrowing my neighbor's old tape measure and got the job done in five minutes flat. The trick is you have to use these things in complete darkness or on overcast days, which is basically useless when you're trying to measure a room you LIVE in. Also they hate shiny surfaces and dark colors, so good luck measuring anything useful. Honestly I think they're made for construction guys who work in empty buildings with flat drywall, not for normal people doing normal stuff around the house.

Respectfully, I see this the other way. Your strongest piece is your best foot forward, and if someone skips ahead anyway, that's on them, not you. Leading with a "close to what you want" project might work if you're pivoting hard, but most people looking at your work want to see your ceiling first. If I'm hiring someone, I want to know their absolute best, not a compromise piece that might not show their full range. You might be filtering out the wrong crowd by burying your strongest work deeper in the portfolio.

Did you already check if the DHCP server was logging those overlaps? Seems like a basic thing to turn on but half the time people skip it.

That thing about the librarian using Colorable is cool but not surprising once you start looking. I've noticed a pattern where small public spaces like libraries and community centers actually care more about accessibility than big chain stores do. Walk into any Target and you'll find product labels with yellow text on white backgrounds that make you squint. But the local library here uses bold black on cream for everything. It's like the smaller the budget, the more thought they put into making stuff actually work for people.

Bet, sealant's just trapping problems inside.