I feel like this thread could have gone a lot smoother if a few things had been explained up front, but...it is what it is. Your initial post made it sound like you couldn't get a vorlauf started, and you were never able to sparge at all. I just assumed you were batch sparging, but that was my mistake in assuming.
You had a bit of grain get under your false bottom and clog, but you were able to suck start it (that must have burned your mouth btw), then you essentially batch sparged. Why did you have to keep the valve all the way open, did the flow stop when you turned the valve down, or did you just worry that it might?
What happened on the actual sparge? Did that drain just fine, or did you just do a very fast fly sparge with no interruption between mash and sparge?