Okay, I have played with the blanker some more, and here is the new blanker behaviour:
(1) If player is not playing (paused, or end of playlist), or if Tuner/Aux are muted, then the timeout countdown begins immediately, regardless of screen activity ("sensitivity == 0%").
(2) So long as the player is playing, or Tuner/Aux are not muted, then the usual timeout and sensitivity settings apply as before.
This will go out in v97 shortly, along with improvements to the /proc/empeg_notify feature (now collects/shows more info than before).
Cheers