@BugeyeD:
i see BLOCK/DROP rules here, none of which are being logged. i do understand why they are there and what they are trying to protect against. what i noticed as being odd was that WAN (em2) is not represented here, whereas OPT1 (em1) is. so naturally i have to wonder if packets are getting dropped at OPT1 and not on WAN, thus breaking failover on OPT1 but not on WAN. but since logs are not being generated i can't tell for sure.
updated to the new snapshot, still have the same situation and therefore the same question.