Can no longer modify aria_block_size

I've been using aria_block_size 1024 for performance reasons I noticed in testing my application long ago.

Importing my database into a fresh mysql install using the default value 8192 results in poor performance by comparison. Certain transactions take > 2-4X or longer, very noticeable.

I'd like to test 4096 but I think I'm encountering a bug.

The mariadb tables we changed to Aria from MyISAM (I think in 10.4, maybe more recently). In doing this I think you've locked the ability to change that setting.

Starting from a fresh install, without starting the server. I edit my.cnf, change aria_block_size to 4096. But on first start up get an error because the mysql (system) database has Aria tables using a different block size.

And you can't import or modify those tables, so I can't for instance make them MyISAM or InnoDB temporarily to get the job done. Had no problem backing them up or even deleting them. But I couldn't import backed up (modified) table schema, attempting to change the engine for those tables.

Can't find anyone else with this issue and can't find anyone (recently) explaining how to change the aria_block_size to anything besides 8192.

I also can't find any literature on why this setting default was increased so much. Went from 1024 to 4096 (which you can't actually set, it's really 8192). That's a huge difference. Was there a specific reason behind changing this. I'm sure there had to be good reason.

This prevents me from upgrading MariaDB, I'm stuck on 10.3 as the change was enforced in v10.4.

Thank you for any insight.