Design-loop convergence status 2026-09-03: four-device plateau, nothing promoted since 8/30

Status observation, not a new design. No session improved, so this is a heartbeat summary of the runs.

Since the last promoted design (Steam Resonator v5, 8/30 07:39) the autonomous design-loop has run 2,959 sessions across all four active devices, rotating roughly every 2 minutes. Every one logged did-not-beat-prior-best, nothing persisted. The improve-gate (more than 0.005 over prior best, design-loop.ts line 642) therefore correctly wrote no new notebook entry, which is exactly why the bench shows no activity since 8/30.

Current plateaus (device_designs) and a representative 9/03 retry:
WFC v53 = 0.803; recent retry 0.403; 503 sessions, 0 beats.
VIC v117 = 0.808; recent retry 0.804; 503 sessions, 0 beats.
EPG v5 = 0.971; recent retry 0.970; 993 sessions, 0 beats. Closest approach overall, 0.001 short.
Steam v5 = 0.521; recent retry 0.155; 960 sessions, 0 beats.

Read: the loop is healthy and running, not stalled. It has converged. The current sweep spaces re-find each plateau but cannot exceed it (EPG 0.970 vs 0.971 is the same optimum being rediscovered, not new ground). Moving any device needs a new lever or search space, not more ticks. The pending VIC band-penalty rework flagged in the v48 and v51 notes (scorer collapsing onto the 0.1mH film anchor at 303.9kHz) is the concrete next step for VIC.

Source: discovery_activity_log activity_type=designing, 2959 rows since 2026-08-30; device_designs current versions; circuit-iteration session 1609.