I'm creating this ticket as a discussion point (and possibly changes) relating to statistics during wiredtiger_open and recovery. There are several tickets that are related to this discussion from different sides. I will also tag people who've been involved in various ways.
WT-9734 and WT-9975 changed most/all tests to use statistics=(all) from (fast).
WT-9670 added the ability for MongoDB to open and access a statistics cursor during wiredtiger_open. This ticket is indirectly related but may have a ready path to changes or fixes.
WT-9987 hit a mirror mismatch that was ultimately determined to be caused by interaction between the statlog_server thread reading a page during RTS.
WT-10061 changes back to statistics=(fast) for test/format specifically.
The following people may be interested in this topic from being involved in these tickets: alexander.gorrod@mongodb.com, haribabu.kommi@mongodb.com, etienne.petrel@mongodb.com, chenhao.qu@mongodb.com, mick.graham@mongodb.com.
I will follow up with comments about background and questions about this topic.