The vast majority of splice breaks will occur at the end of the taper in the bury. (It is considered a good break when this occurs). Considering you are now removing the taper altogether I believe you are going to see a sizable loss in tensile. If you consider that a good portion of the 12 strands are going to be deviating from their normal path to allow for the exiting of the bury.
Given the fact that this is a life critical application and the rope will be taught before it is loaded (applying some high loads) I would approach Samson about having a tensile break done to an eye splice of this configuration. I am sure they would be happy to do it (it will certainly give them some valuable information) and it would certainly be better to know in advance than to have a failure occuring.
As for strength loss following the removal of the splice. I agree this should be minimal provided no damage has occurred to the yarns (and that the rope is indeed not overloaded at the revious splice points).
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