When you have good & well-placed repeaters and no ghosts in your mesh, then it's best to just let the mesh sort itself out instead of trying to bend its will -- that can take several days.
Leviton has firmware updates for some of its ZW devices - worth looking into.
Debug logging isn't necessary (or desirable) to leave on unless troubleshooting an issue. IIRC, many (all?) devices have it on temporarily (30 mins or so?) to help verify stuff when adding it as a new device, but then it automatically turns itself off. I usually just proactively make sure it's deselected when I add a new device since it's something you can turn on/off at will anytime. But if left on indefinitely, it can gum up your logs.
For your unplugged stuff, yeah -- it's best to plug those back in. If you have plugs you just use seasonally or whatever and then otherwise stow away, most folks just use wifi plugs for that instead.
