Check out this post regarding updating your Leviton Dimmers. There are numerous revisions with a bunch of fixes and they work much better after updating the firmware.
What I'm asking is if clicking on the Start Level Change or Stop Level Change buttons on the Hubitat web GUI device screen for this dimmer has any effect on the lights attached to this dimmer? e.g. it sounds like you are saying, even without a remote control (e.g. pico), if I click on those 2 buttons on the web GUI something should/will something happen to the dimmer/lights? Do clicking on those 2 buttons equate to pressing the up/down dim bar on the rgt side of physical dimmer? And back on the web GUI, how does the Level setting/value affect these 2 buttons?
I've been a programmer for over 30 years, but I've got to say this isn't intuitive stuff to a newbie in HA 
Yes, I saw that post. I'm hoping there's a step-by-step tutorial somewhere? I'm clueless as to exactly what I'd be doing with the Hubitat's USB stick? If I put it into a Windows computer, do I then boot from the USB stick (and end up in a Linux world)? If I don't boot it, what am I doing to it? Scratching my head
Yes, exactly
Level Setting sets the initial level (dim) from which you would go up or down.
Look at this post. Basically you just need to install the device driver for the Hubitat stick and then the Z-Flash software can use it to flash the FW.
The USB stick is a pair of radios, can't boot from it.
You install the drivers, then run the Purchased software... you can purchase it with their own USB Stick (ZWave only) and that would remove the need to power down the Hub to do the upgrade.
BUT
If you're going to buy another ZWave Stick, buy the Aeon.
It's got an internal battery so it works unplugged and can be used to Exclude and Include devices while you are walking room to room with it.
I guess I really do need a firmware update for this Leviton dimmer, as the web GUI often reports an incorrect value for Current States->Level.
Example 1: I typed in 80 for the Level, then clicked on [Set Level]. The dimmer/lights turned on at 80%. Then I typed 40 in the Level field (did not click on [Set Level]), set the Direction to Down, then clicked on [Start Level Change] - the lights faded to off (should have stopped at 40%, right?). The Current States now list as Level:80 . State: Off
Oh, I thought the USB stick in my Hubitat hub contained the os. I guess that's contained in onboard memory in the hub itself. So the USB stick is both a Z-Wave (and ZigBee) radio, as well as some flash memory?
What does the HomeSeer company/product have to do with flashing Leviton dimmer drivers? They sell some general purpose Windows software that can handle flashing of these radio adapters? Will Hubitat ever have that natively?
Exactly they have software and the actual FW files to flash these devices. Leviton will not give out FW to individuals, only companies.
On most physical dimmer switches, you can push the top to turn on the light, or push the bottom to turn off the light. Once the light is on, if your press and hold the top, the light will get brighter and brighter until you release the switch. Likewise, if you press and hold the bottom, the light will get dimmer and dimmer until you release the switch. (As you can see from the bolded text above, we have three physical events - pushed, held, and released.)
Most Home Automation platforms, allow you to turn 'on', turn 'off', and 'setLevel' a dimmer switch. This is usually enough for automations. For example, someone walks into a room, a motion detector 'sees them', causing a rule to run to turn on the light at a specific dim level. In this situation, there is no reason to use the StartLevelChange or StopLevelChange commands.
However, Hubitat has some amazing support for Lutron Pico remotes which are capable of generating pushed, held, and released events. One of the things that users requested was the ability to emulate the physical switch's dimming behavior (as described above) while using a Pico Remote. @mike.maxwell discovered that both Z-Wave and ZigBee have support in their respective protocols to command the device to 'StartLevelChange" in either an "Up" or "Down" direction. To halt the dimming, you issue a 'StopLevelChange' command.
So, now we have the building blocks necessary to use a Pico remote as a smooth dimmer. Using a Button Controller App, we map the "pushed" events to 'on' and 'off'. We map the "held" events to 'StartLevelChange(up)' and 'StartLevelChange(down)'. And finally, we map the "released" events to 'StopLevelChange'.
Hoepfully this helps explain what these two extra commands are typically used for. Not all physical devices support these commands, your results may vary. I use these commands via a pico remote to control smooth dimming of my Sengled ZigBee bulbs. It works great!
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Ahhh, that makes more sense: I thought the Start/Stop Level Change command buttons could be used in the Hubitat web GUI (for the Leviton dimmer device). I guess while they could be "used" within the GUI, they have no real-world application within this GUI's context. BUT they are very applicable when coded/programmed in scenarios like you describe... So maybe nothing is wrong with my Leviton dimmer which is currently set to the not-so-smart Generic Z-Wave Dimmer device type. Maybe if I was really quick at clicking on the [Stop Level Change] button, it might function as expected? Then again, if the Direction is set to Down and the Level is set to say 20%: if I then click on the [Start Level Change] button in GUI, shouldn't the dimmer dim the lights down to 20%, and lights stay on? They are turning off instead...
No, they will continue to dim until they reach 0%, unless a stopLevelChange command is received. Same thin happens on the way up. They will stop at 100%, unless you interrupt the command.
setLevel will change the current dim level to the value you type in before pressing the button. Some dimmers also support a time interval over which the change in level will occur. Not all dimmer do, though.
Ahhh, then I guess my dimmer is behaving correctly. Though the Hubitat web GUI does report the Current State->Level incorrectly after using these 2 commands within the GUI...
Another oddity I've noticed is that after I play around with some of the dimmer's device command buttons in the HE GUI, if I then walk over to dimmer on wall and quickly press the top half of switch, the light will come on and dim level will ramp up to 100% (it should have just turned on at whatever its last Level was set at). And if I momentarily press the smaller dim up (or down) buttons (on rgt side of dimmer), lights will ramp up/down to 100%/0% brightness. They should only ramp up/down one fraction/notch.
I just purchased HomeSeer's Z-Flash utility ($15 special). Keeping fingers crossed that my dimmer will work afterwards
Not totally straightforward (is anything in the IT world?), but I got the dimmer updated to firmware version 1.20 . I posted detailed instructions under a different post titled Support of OTA firmware updates for Z-Wave / Z-Wave Plus devices
Darn - even with the new firmware (1.20) Alexa is back to reporting "Sorry <device" is not responding" 10 secs after speaking the command "Alexa, turn off the Living Room Lights". It did turn off the lights within a second or so, but then reports no response...
Guess I'm going all the way back to square one - change the device type from Generic SMART Z-Wave Dimmer to Generic Z-Wave Dimmer . 
And yes, I had to enable dimmer's inclusion/pairing mode, delete the dimmer in HE, add it fresh etc. I also deleted it from Alexa->Smart Home, then did a re-discovery...
I wonder if Support can look at my logs? Are they good at doing that?
Did you factory reset the dimmer?
I thought the dimmer got factory reset at conclusion of firmware update because HE told me it was in Exclusion mode, and would not let me delete the device until I enabled Inclusion mode. But it can't hurt to try performing a factory reset using the dimmers' controls...
