Dr.MetabolicMD said:

If two explanations both fit, the useful question is which one predicts something the other does not.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. Order of operations matters more than any single choice here: establish a baseline, change one thing, wait long enough for it to express itself, then measure again under the same conditions.

Adding the numbers, since they settle part of this. One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number. A figure without its method cannot be checked, and an unchecked figure is how this community accumulates folklore.

Following on from Dr.MetabolicMD — and this may be the naive question:

Whether anyone has held at a sub-maximal dose long term and kept the result, or whether the maintenance data only exists at 2.4mg?

dave_SLC said:

One habit that pays for itself: post the method alongside the number.

Careful with the causal language. Two things moving together in a period when five things changed is not a mechanism, and stating it as one makes the thread less useful to somebody reading it later.

Closing the loop on my own question.

Update since I posted: I held at 1.7mg for a further twelve weeks and lost another 4kg slowly, which settles it for me. I was escalating because the number was available, not because I had stopped responding.