It's been reported and noted various places that the flame browser is off by one for flames made more recently. Does anyone know where this discrepancy starts? and what exactly is the problem? or even better...how to fix it? I can verify for example that flame #2218 (made 7/13) previews as flame #2217.

Same with me here,
I'm pretty sure, developers will take it on hand,
as soon as they are reading this.

Try re-installing toribash, if that helps.
Although there are slight chances our files have been corrupted.

This is a known bug, and it should be fixed with 4.0. There is no need or use in reinstalling your toribash, or taking any measures to rectify the problem.