Tech questions on cooling system - 2010 Voyager

[Calflan]

Yestreday took a ride in high temp weather and the temp gauge climbed to red border, not in red, but right to lower level line.

Outside temperature here in Arizona was 101 - 102 degrees elevation approx. 2500 ft. humidty 3%. Rode up a mountain, to 9500 ft., 88 degrees, low humidity. En route, temp climbed to low red, I stopped for about 10 mins and it cooled down pretty quick with fan running. On restart, approx. 5 mins later, it climbed back up again. My wife and I on the bike, approx. 400 lbs. up hill. At the top, with lower ambient temps, the gauge dropped back down to 3/4 and rode there for the remainder of the uphill ride. On the ride down, it never climbed that high again, remained 3/4 to 3/4 + at times. Never experienced a running issue, bike ran fine without issue, but really unnerving to have the gauge ride so high.

What I have done (all prior to this ride):
1 - Several weeks, ago, converted to Mobil 1 20W-50 Synthetic oil
2 - Flushed coolant system and filled with 100% Engine Ice about 2 weeks ago. No water coolant mix, but as I understand that's fine with Engine Ice.
3 - Wrapped pipes about a week ago
4 - For summer weather, removed the forward leg fairings attached to the engine guard bars, to provide full airflow to engine (the area the louver that can be opened and closed provides, in my opinion, is too little in higher temps running) mainly for rider comfort.

Questions:
1 - What is the value on each increment on the temp gauge for the 6 marks on the gauge ? Thermostat kicks in at 180 I believe, so I would expect to see gauge climb to that point and then slow for climbing any higher.
2 - How irregular is it to see temp climb this high ?
3 - What is normal running temp (gauge indication) ? I would expect, as any other vehicle I own, it'd run mid gauge most of the time. If what I'm seeing is normal, why would Kawasaki install a gauge with such low level calibration to run so high.
4 - What more can be done to drop running temp ? Commander module ? Open air intake ?
5 - I bought the bike with approx. 6000 miles on it from an owner in Denver (high altitude) and rode home to Tucson. Is there an adjustment on the ECM for fiuel / air ratio that'd be set by Kawasaki for high altitude regions ? A bike sold new in Denver might require a different air / fuel ratio setting as opposed to one closer to sea level. Do I need have this adjusted to compensate ?

Running temp is quite irritating for this top of the line bike from Kawasaki. I had a 1600 Vulcan Classic prior and no temp gauge, but that engine was completely water cooled, not just the heads.

Thanks for any help / heads up !