(Same as elsewhere in the thread, nothing new.)

still confused about why the 2-argu[m]ent version of open *without* the space between the direction and the & would *not* create the file, but with the space it does. Why does the lack of the space prevent the creation of the file?

The >& construct duplicates the following filehandle or file descriptor (taken from Bourne shell). Otherwise, as in > &, output is directed to some file whose name begins with "&", nothing special.

So >&STDOUT duplicates the STDOUT file handle, while > &STDOUT generates the "&STDOUT" file.