John,
I agree about the cause of expansion. In fact it's pretty much impossible for VLD's to begin expanding in the same way as conventional hollow- or soft-points, because there isn't any opening in the meplat. It's completely closed, the reason for the very small puncture-wound entrance hole.
That's an interesting theory about the expansion at different ranges. All I can say for sure is that I've never seen a VLD "expand prematurely" and also never seen one fail to expand, no matter what the range.
