Dave are you back on a x32 OS?
I'm sure x64 is hurting me.

Yeah I have played with Autoexpress but I didn't see any advantage so I turned it off again. I'm not having any stability issues at all, I just can't get above that wall, so I'm sure it's OS related.

As far as the voltage goes, just run with what you're happy with. More voltage will always hurt a cpu compared to it's stock VID, but I think you're always better with it rising like that and keeping things stable than having the dreaded Asus droop.
If it were me as long as the temps weren't getting out of spec then I would be inclined to keep it where it is. It's a personal opinion really.

I think as far as bioses go ours are good but we desperately need to be able to lift the imc volts. We've got the dual plane cpu, now we need to control it.
The NB multi option is good but I find going below 8 is pointless although that could be an x64 problem too.