I can now connect without using the hard-coded RCW. Still can't access the DDR controller registers, though. The key to this mini-breakthrough was changing 2 RCW values in QSPI flash. I changed them to the values used by the hard-coded RCW value 0x9A:
RCW | (desired values) | (working values) |
1 | 0x0608000A | 0x060A0006 |
6 | 0x08000020 | 0x00404000 |
I tried just changing one RCW or the other, but they were both needed. Perhaps it's not surprising that I still can't access DDR as that working RCW6 value doesn't configure a valid ref clock source for DDR on our board.