Having taken part in the discord discussion while you were investigating, and then after reading your writeup here, I see no reason not to agree with these proposed changes! While, true, it might make things a little more awkward for our manual LiveSplit timing, ultimately it is the official timing that matters, and that requires precision.

My preferences would be to use the first frame of the screen fadeout for the start, and the first frame of the stats screen for the finish, since, as you explain, these options would not alter the run by any meaningful amount of time or add any additional button mashing like the other options would. Seems like an ideal compromise for the runners in order to make the official timing more accurate and consistent!