Disregard last update.
The testing wasn't valid since I had a continuous ping from another computer going that was preventing the AC 7265 WIFI from going to sleep and masking the issue that still occurs even with "allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" disabled.
Furthermore, according to Microsoft the value should be 24 decimal or 0x18 hex. With the correct value in place the device won't wake on the second attempt.
Starting over from scratch with Intel 17.13.11.5 driver and no registry change but with "wake on pattern match" disabled I'm on day two with no loss of WIFI upon waking from sleep. Going to withhold final verdict until it works consistently for a week and after confirming this driver version correctly allows the device to gracefully hibernate on critical 4% battery since I've seen it reboot instead on a few occasions.
Will update in a few days.