What Supercedes What?

I don't see how you can say definitively DO NOT REMOVE BEFORE or AVOID AT ALL COSTS when you have a five man bullpen.

If you've got a LHP set to avoid RH and a RHP set to avoid LH and your setup guy just got "tired", and your mopup guy has pitched three games straight, you're gonna burn through a five-man pen pretty quickly. That's why I feel that they have to be viewed as your preferences, not absolutes

That said, I agree with nev, if I have a big $$ reliever, I want him pitching, not coming out before he's tired. But, let's face it, the best bullpen management is a complete game by your starter.

The help section is pretty specific on exactly this, if you want a don't remove before to always hold you need to minimize your other super reliever roles because HAL is not a mindreader.

Don't Relieve Before
(available only for leagues using Bullpen v2 or later)

For each of your pitchers, you can indicate that you don't want the computer manager to decide to "give him the hook" based on his overall game performance unless he has reached a certain Pitch Count Fatigue level. Note that there are ways that he may still leave the game before his designated fatigue level, including if he's set to Avoid Lefties or Avoid Righties, if the situation calls for another pitcher you've assigned to a matching Super Hal Bullpen Role, or if the computer manager decides to pinch-hit for him.

So if I don't assign anyone else and Nathan is left in to reach F8 great, but now is at F6 how does HAL know to bring in my lefty specialist or anyone else since no one else is listed? Very poorly written logic imo.

Curious, were your team relief settings conservative or aggressive.

Probably normal but I don't know for certain.