You're probably noticing instability at higher voltages due to the increased pcb, vrm and memory chip temperatures. I noticed the same thing back when I had a reference EVGA 980 SC in that voltage barely seemed to help my OC and higher voltages caused instability. However, on my current cards I've noticed that increased voltage does actually help to improve clocks and is probably down to the cooling solution on it (includes full coverage of vrms/memory chips etc.)
Also I found the only way of really controlling voltage would be at bios level. Due to the way boost states work I found that afterburner voltage adjustments aren't clear or precise enough. I simply edit the bios with an additional increment of voltage at the highest boost state (74) and that works a hell of a lot better than afterburner.
Also your point re custom bios is correct. This is especially true on custom pcb cards as the components, power delivery etc can be completely different. I flashed an EVGA Bios on my old 970 g1's and it caused all manner of artifacts, when I copied the same settings into a version of the G1 bios, flawless. The maxwell bios tool is fairly easy to understand once you've done it a couple of times.
If any fellow inno3d ichill owners want a copy of my game stable and benching bios versions let me know.