I suspect what he quoted was his real experience. So in a drill press test situation if one will not pump up or bleed down it is seized or the internal spring is broken or the internal check valve is open or the piston bore fit is history. Hence the terms collapsed,,stuck or sticking lifter if the piston is not mobile. Plus just pretty disfunctional if completly collapsed or unable to hold oil from escaping at all. Another choice perhaps is the piston went higher when it pumped up and got stuck on the normally unused area of the bore in the last application probably on existing varnish.

His working them resulted in getting the piston mobile. Might have even been rust from sitting too long or varnish as I mentioned.. The bottom line is what he describes is quite possible in my mind.

Anytime you have an engine down that far testing the lifters with a drill press takes little time. Put the lifter in a bath of oil and use the down pressure of the drill press to see how they pump up and respond in comparison to each other.

Remember that he observed the number two cylinders valve remaining open. In my mind this was just a stuck lifter piston. The piston was stuck in the position of its last application. If the past requirement for the lifter had seized the piston lower in the bore the lifter may have just created excessive valve lash noise.. His spin was the lifters used where not from the same bores orperhaps even engine. What he encountered could not occur had they been from them. The lifter piston would never be that high in the bore.

My own experience with lifters is limited. The only ones I took apart where my extra large ones in my 1950 buick as some where stuck or sticking from twenty five years of the engine sitting. Got them all functioning well. Those particular lifters where expensive devils to buy replacements for.