How much time are do you have between the various items in your refresh? You can tell if it isn’t enough if you see a log statement loading a rules file before all of the log statements for the persist files have finished loading. This is my config:
folder:items=20,items
folder:sitemaps=26,sitemap
folder:rules=30,rules
folder:scripts=24,script
folder:persistence=22,persist
Notice I have 8 seconds between my persist and my rules.
Yes, if you have “restoreOnStartup” strategy in the Items section of your persist file. For example:
* : strategy = everyChange, restoreOnStartup
will save every change to every Item and restore the state of every Item when openHAB starts or a rules file is reloaded.