I feel like an idiot, but maybe this will help someone else. The magical .02" jump was due to a different sizes probe tip. It seems I had received the .2" digital tips instead of the 4mm analog tips... think I would have noticed the ball size being different.... but I didn't.

I ordered more tips after a software crash the ended up ceasing the tip. When I installed the new tip 2 days ago it was off .02" again so it went back to the factory adjustment after some more head scratching.

The resin everything indicated correctly that morning (in the op) was that all of my datums were hole or slot centers which doesn't matter how big the ball is as its subtracted automatically.