I'm always puzzled with the mapping of the internal version numbers to the device OS versions. @rickkas7 usually has a lookup table for that, but I can never remember where
I just know that v324 should be 0.8.0-rc.25 and v325 is rc.26
The second part of your question: There is no purpose in having the factory location empty, but since there currently is no rock-solid version it's little use to populate it with a known to be buggy version.
Once a stable version is locked down, I'd assume it'll be placed there.
I know for the Spark Core there is a CLI command to flash a custom firmware image to the factory location.
I can confirm like others on the Forum that it most certainly is an issue with my Xfinity router. As I have a Raspberry Pi 3B+ as an AP to the same router. Setup the Argon to use that and then my Xenon was up and running in seconds after that Funny thing is, most of the time I always use that as an AP in development as it makes it easy to continue working if I move locations with a bunch of Photons but thought in this case I would make it simple and eliminate any possible issues being first gen devices and all. Damned if you do and damn if you don’t. lol.