CJ... Sorry - don't 100% understand your post...
What's the SOP about one TR inop? We won't get the same decel with one TR!
Oh, don't pull that engine into reverse, then.
That was the old MEL... hardly affects LDR. However, seems an "HF issue" meant that maybe this crew, and others, were led into not even selecting idle in this engine, and leaving it not far off Climb Power
Reason for the MEL advice was to avoid the "locked out" Eng slightly increasing Fwd Thrust as engine went to "Rev Idle" EPR / RPM - a little higher than "Ground Idle".
And somehow, instead of doing what should be ingrained: slamming both TLs to reverse, never mind if one TR is inop
The new MEL, and unfortunately the change was prior CGH, but maybe too late in distribution / publication / understanding
The rest is a sad history.
It is, but nothing to do with "1 Rev U/S" performance IMHO. It seems an HF issue, now corrected I think...