Two things cross my mind, from a lot of posts read and my own experience:
1) at 36/37% during botting-up from scratch E2 is checking out the network (I just moved house and my new modem's address is different now). In my current circumstance a full reboot lasts for ages! E2 restart is fast. No checking the network then... I suppose that when I finally get the time to install E2 from scratch it will not be doing the "37% slow and forever dance"... All my recs are doing it now and probably the only explanation I can think of is that...
2) On the other hand, OpenPLi has been shown to fcuk up multiboot in some instances, when mixed with OE-A images (you haven't said if you had that installed in your GB)... Zgemma H7, H9 Twin/Combo, Edision+ didn't like that combination...