To see if it is a kernel mis-reporting values or if it is an issue with CL reading the ulimit changes, can you recreate the opening of more than 1024 files with another application?
Here’s an example using python:
import os
f = {}
#create a lot of files and open them
for x in range(1050):
f[x] = open(‘%s’ % x, ‘w’)
# Close the open files
for x in range(1050):
f[x].close()
# Remove created files
for x in iter(f):
os.unlink(x)