When starting DM, it opens the last project as expected, and puts up the "splash" screen for lack of a better term. Clicking a project in the re4cent list does not close the "splash" screen. If I click on a topic in the topic tree it goes away.

Check this setting:

I think recent changes blew away your main configuration file and it reverted to the default. I've changed the default to true - this was mainly a debug feature to ensure that the topic loading race condition during opening is minimized.

What I mean the default was false but changed to true now.

Checked and reestablished Start with Topic. All good. Thanks!