This is a good point. Would the version numbers displayed from apt list --installed be what I’m looking for?

As it happens I do keep a git repo that keeps a log of that information. I see that after reinstall, linux-image-* and linux-headers-* packages have the same actual version numbers but there are some other values in that same listing that have changed a bit. Some look like git commit hashes. I dunno.

I did start with a different, updated Pop!_OS image this time. I’ve considered wiping again using the older image which I still have. I figured that using the new one would be best and just avoid the need for a few GB of updates but looking at the diff of the installed packages (and looking at differences in how I was able to resolve some random issues, for example previously I had pulse installed for audio stuff, now I do not, it’s a different app), it seems like a lot of the OS internals are rather different…