I did a little more experimenting on the clone account, and discovered that:
a) it doesn't help to delete and re-add my DVD recorder
b) it doesn't help to delete it again and add a different DVD recorder model

All activities involving the DVD recorder still disappear on download to the remote.

So it looks like your information may be right dvdevil, Harmony has managed to break their system for all DVD recorders, and hasn't managed to fix it in more than a week of trying. So why are support staff like the fellow I spoke to apparently unaware of the issue?

Mr. akirby seems to have a lot of inside knowledge - does he know anything about this?