Though it’s not overtly advocated, the screen shots show leaving the Corners field to Adjust dashes and gaps. I have found that at specific line length to rule weight ratios this can result the join between dots becoming visible. The dots show some cleavage.

The effect is more pronounced and probably easier to replicate if Adjust gaps only is selected. I can’t see any problem with None, but I assume Adjust dots is the safest choice.

PS re “This just keeps getting simpler” Isn’t it simpler to to define a rounded corner rule than to have to select both rule and gap colours each and every time?

I tested out your problem and the same thing happened on my end. Here’s what it boils down to: since all break characters are “end of paragraph” characters, the \r metacharacter matches all break characters (line, column, frame, page and standard carriage return). This happens with both Text and GREP searches. While you can specifically search for any of those break characters using its unique metacharacter (~R for Page Break, for example), the \r can’t distinguish between any specific break type.

My recommended workaround for your particular problem is to first do a search for the page break character (~R) and use Find/Change to insert something unique like a bullet character (or even some text like PAGEBREAK that couldn’t possibly appear anywhere else in your text) in front of it. Then, do a second find change for all of the double returns using the \r\r method. The page break characters won’t be matched because they’re preceded by the unique text you put in. Once all of the double returns have been removed, do one more search to remove the unique character or text you put in before the page breaks.

It’s not perfect, but it’s the only way around the problem.