KrowGyrl,
your interpretation of the picture is very ok, and it took me a while also to get the point of the design. Your are absolutely right about the idea of personal experiment. This rug is why I love persien village and nomadic rugs. They are always good for a surprise. The 80% symmetric are where the weaver started, you can tell from the pile direction. Then he or she had the rug almost finished, and for some reason we will never know the second part was added. As rugpro mentioned, for this money it is a great rug for a collection. It is no great quality, but a nice and funny sample of village rugs. And every rug that makes you think or talk about it is worth buying.
I have a Loribaft that has a similar idea, that is why I bought it:
Funny Loribaft rugLook at the beginning / lower part. The weaver was using a square design, and for ome reason, she decided to do the rest of the rug with circles.