It's also not entirely clear to me what the "level" and "preserve" settings mean and how they interact with each other and how order in the list might influence things as well.

Since the sentence ending period (dot) and exclamation point (bang) are noted as level all and preserve always, while further down we have the period character with dot (the pronunciation) with level some and preserve never and the exclamation point character with bang with level all and preserve never it's really unclear to me what one would have to do to get context specific pronunciation.

When you throw in decimal point, which shows no actual character, just the name decimal point, things become more unclear.

I generally use "bang" for the exclamation point only in the context of programming or when writing out a keystroke sequence that requires its use, but "exclamation point" when talking about it as a punctuation mark.

When it comes to the period character it's period as punctuation in written English or other natural language, dot in things like URLs or other classification systems, and point in numbers.

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Brian - Windows 10 Home, 64-Bit, Version 1803, Build 17134  

     Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.

          ~ H.L. Mencken, AKA The Sage of Baltimore