There is a comment in __rec_review that tries to cover this:

>                /*
                 * If reconciliation failed due to unwritable modifications
                 * and the page is a lot larger than the maxiumum allowed, it
                 * is likely that we are having trouble reconciling it due to
                 * contention. Attempt to split the page in memory.
                 */

I understand that the point is a bit hidden - can you suggest better wording?

I'll clarify the function documentation for __wt_eviction_page_force to be clear why it returns something other than a boolean.