No stupid questions at all here, I'm grasping at straws myself as to why it's happening. At this point I believe I will end up pulling the trans because I can't make any sense of anything else. I disconnected the electrical to all the solenoids, which should be a direct path then to reverse and still no change.

As for wheels freewheeling in reverse, I can go from drive at idle speed with the wheels still rolling and brake just enough to allow it to go into reverse without stopping the wheels and the wheels still freely spin forward until the lack of power being applied to them stops them. Yes... I know it's not a good idea to go from drive to reverse, of course it can cause damage, at this point I'm not really worried about an idle speed drive to reverse drop with no load, was more curious to see if there was any resistance and there was not.