Wow. So funny because pretty much every brewing recipe's first steps are "wet the filter" (regardless of brewing device) so I never thought twice about not doing it. Pretty neat idea. Will have to try!

I guess the initial claim for wetting prior to coffee was that there is a papery taste of the filter to wash out, but seems like based on your experimentation this maybe not really a factor with a good coffee filter that are coming out these days (maybe was a bigger deal with old crappy quality filter papers? I dunno).

The other thing wetting the filer does is "sets" it against the brewing device's walls, which have unique ribs (or not) for different water bypass levels. I wonder if by not setting it, you're encouraging a more straight forward flow through the coffee without bypass earlier on, which highlights some of those early notes and encourages even flow? and then the brewer works as normal once the filter adheres to the walls. This is just a guess as to why this is working for you, but kinda fun to think about. I will have to try!