Re: Dating *e > *i in Germanic

> Incidentally, what is considered the main evidence for early Finnic avoidance of *-o- in
> non-initial syllables?

Aside from the direct evidence in the form of loanwords of the _porsas_ type?
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_porsas_ is an interesting data point, but are there any other widely-accepted loans of this kind (i.e., loans that appear to show unmerged short *o)? If not, then maybe we should be cautious in deciding exactly what to conclude from it: the *o could reflect dissimilation (*a-a > *o-a), the (sporadic) influence of the *p-r environment, or both.

Incidentally, did the o-vocalism of the derivational suffix -os (as in Finnish _tulos_ "result", etc.) arise through the same process as the derivational suffix -o (as in Finnish _tulo_ "arrival", etc.), which as I recall is from earlier *-aj?

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Some other direct examples of "vowel flattening" in loanwords:
_ankerias_ "eel" < Baltic *angurjas
_kirves_ "ax" < Baltic *kirvis
_sisar_ "sister" < Baltic *s(w)esoor
_mesi_ (_mete-_) "honey" < PIE *medhu-

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Is Finnish _mete-_ a case of vowel flattening, or simply the "deletion" of -u because *metu would have looked like a derivative of an otherwise non-existent root?