I found this thread on mygmrs forum about the AR-152 and the effect CHIRP allegedly has on it. It's quite a good thread. I didn't get any hits on RadioReference when I just searched.
I hadn't read this thread until you posted, nor have I heard any complaints about this issue. However, for context here on the list, people say the RT Systems software appears to have the same effect, which likely means this isn't actually a CHIRP-specific problem.
In a nutshell, it says that once you run CHIRP on your Baofeng AR-152. your power settings are permanently altered such that you no longer have low power or full power anymore.
This post is from May and has been relatively quiet since. I wonder if it's still a risk?
For what it's worth, what is being described there doesn't make any sense to me. Although a common misconception, CHIRP doesn't tell the radio "this memory should be 8W and this other one should be 2W". All it says (and all it can say) is "this memory should be power level 3, and this memory should be power level 1". Those are just instructions to the radio about which numbered power level to use, and the radio determines what that output power would actually be. On some radios, there are calibration settings stored (in a different part of memory) that could influence those numbers. However, a download and subsequent upload with CHIRP by definition will upload the exact bits into the exact locations and as such, it would be very unlikely that simply doing that would cause the radio trouble like is being described.
There's not really enough information in that thread to begin to comment about why that may have happened. I'd have lots of questions to ask someone making such a claim, including lots of details they seem to be glossing over which are quite relevant. I also feel like if this was very widespread we'd have seen at least one report of it in our bug tracker, but I find none. The author of that post seems to think that it's a hardware issue (which seems unlikely, but supported by the fact that the RT Systems software also does it), so perhaps that's why. Also, testing with a power meter isn't really enough to say anything about whether the radio is outputting a lower power because it has been detuned, or if it's just driving lower, etc.
I have two 152s on the bench right now to program so I saw this post just in time to stop. Both have the firmware rev A152V01 indicated as problematic. I'm surprised the issue hasn't been discussed here.
Yeah, if you're concerned about it, then it's probably best not to risk it. I'll also say that I believe the UV5R-derived Baofeng radios basically lie about their firmware versions after a certain point starting many years ago, so I'm not sure you can really say much about that firmware version.
--Dan