It had been selling as food service in restaurants for a few years, how does that not help prove it's 'safe'?

It's not a controlled experiment, and as already linked, it is not part of their current regulation as valid testing.

Curious if you know if there are any examples of foods that haven't been GRAS certified that caused problems? Or is this all theater?

Not of the top of my head. When I worked there, we only worked with ingredients that were already GRAS because it was less headache overall.

Please check the other threads, there appears to be a case made where they had the letter, but did the animal testing anyway.

That's your responsibility to provide.