Tried this. Didn't seem to help. See my Edit II above.

Thanks for your feedback @Milliways. I added some use case details to my description. Not exactly sure what you mean by "need to do this manually". I presume this means configuring via the command line, but I am not clear on the details.

Actually, this appears to be a problem in general. I backed out all my changes, and that problem still persists for the USB WiFi.

I have found an issue with my solution. If I try to change WiFi networks using WiFi icon on the upper right menu bar, I get disconnected from the current network and it will not connect to the new one. No error message, it just won't connect to anything until I reboot.

It is unprotected for the time being.