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@hubcity, a couple of points.
Yes, by definition if you are using a fail safe WR% and your real portfolio has increased, you can “safely” retire again using the new portfolio number, where safely means if the future is no worse than the worst of the past. ERN has at least once confirmed this.
I myself am a big fan of this ratcheting approach.
To the extent you’re reasonably worried about the possibility that the future might be worse than the past, I’ve been working on a hacked version of ERN’s Case Study tab in his Google sheet, and have found that implementing a single 10% cut in withdrawal amount if your real portfolio is down more than 35% works wonders at enabling a somewhat higher Initial SWR (I hope to post a comment about this soon).
i’m *not* actually suggesting you choose a higher SWR, but rather that you feel comfortable with a single 10% cut - from whatever your ultimate peak real withdrawal amount, and held for only as long as your portfolio is down 35% - works not only as an action one might want to take in the face of the reality of such a portfolio drop, but also makes it pretty safe to do the ratcheting and still have protection against something even somewhat worse than the worst historical retirement ever.
I should have added that this idea works in the context of targeting a Final Value (FV) of at least 50%. If targeting less than that, then obviously you will be planning to get meaningfully below down 35% in historical worst case scenarios.
I also should have mentioned than in my hacking, I found that said 10% cut when the portfolio is down 35%+ is not actually needed in the last 15 years of the planned retirement window.