I agree. And since drive space isn't an issue, 2TB drive, next time it shuts down I'll restart without the -prune. The prune switch seems to make no difference in network traffic judging by a glance at the debug network traffic.
I'm not certain, but I suspect that once you have pruning turned on, it may start over downloading from the beginning again if you turn it off (since those early blocks may already have been pruned).
No, it picked up where it left off, 2+ years to go. So, the probability that the whole blockchain must first be downloaded before pruning starts is high.
I've torrent downloaded the blockchain before and built from that but it didn't seem any faster.
With only a month or two to go when it almost finished the other day, all those blocks, reindexing seems not to use those but downloads new or am I mistaken?