Reply To: Why does the ray fire from the cage’s edge along the average normal?

“Is smooth shading changing the way Blender calculates the Normals?”

Yes!

Have a look at the Blender 3.0 Basics Course: https://cgcookie.com/lessons/intro-to-blender-and-cg-cookie

This lesson for instance:  https://cgcookie.com/lessons/mesh-normals-and-shading