Hopefully i'm not distracting from main discussion, but i'm having similar issue with .9 degree steppers on a HEVO with titan aero direct drive.
I recently bumped my X/Y steppers to 85% max rating and my printer is crazy noisy now, but my VFA has really gone down.
To verify i'm not just seeing crap, i'm going to run a test again right now with high rating and lower and see if it proves it out... changed so many settings i'm not even sure anymore.
curious if running at 100mm/s keeps the motors out of quiet mode and changes how they algorithm works - as that may explain why super high power ratings may do something similar.