The arXiv preprint examines mass-ratio reversal (MRR) through population-synthesis runs in COMPAS and SEVN, revealing that MRR systems dominate high-mass, high-q regions only in COMPAS while remaining sub-dominant in SEVN. This model dependence directly affects LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA merger-rate forecasts and channel inference. The study identifies three pathways—core-growth via stable mass transfer, PPISN-induced primary shrinking, and asymmetric core-collapse supernova mass loss—with core-growth overwhelmingly dominant once weighted by local merger density. Most MRR progenitors form below 0.1 solar metallicity. What the coverage misses is that these reversals imply the observed primary-mass spectrum is a composite of distinct evolutionary histories rather than a monotonic map of initial stellar masses, undermining attempts to invert the mass function for the initial mass function. Cross-referencing with the GWTC-3 catalog (LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration, Phys. Rev. X 2021) shows an excess of q > 0.6 events at high total mass that current non-MRR models underpredict. A parallel SEVN-based study (Iorio et al., MNRAS 2023) likewise finds metallicity thresholds near 0.1 Z⊙ but omits MRR weighting, leading to 20–30% underestimates in high-mass merger rates. The preprint is not yet peer-reviewed; both codes rely on uncertain common-envelope efficiency and supernova kick prescriptions, limiting quantitative forecasts until calibrated against additional gravitational-wave events.