The seven instruction example you don’t mean the possibility of skipping an instruction in the reload section?
That always ends up 8 instructions no matter what the result of the bit test.
It takes two instructions to skip one instruction that would otherwise have to be executed.

Mods, this might end up inappropriate for this thread, which was not meant for pointing out errors.
I will do what it takes, and when done, it maybe is appropriate to clean up this bit of the thread.
This is still I think the best tool PBP has going for it.