I also tried to set it at the Erlang level with:
wget -O- --user=<user> --password=<pass> --post-data='ns_bucket:update_bucket_props("default", [{extra_config_string, "tap_throttle_queue_cap=-1"}]).'
http://localhost:8091/diag/eval
And the memcached process failed to start with this message in the logs;
[user:info] [2012-01-17 13:53:41] [
ns_1@127.0.0.1:<0.8646.1>:ns_port_server:handle_info:96] Port server memcached on node '
ns_1@127.0.0.1' exited with status 139. Restarting. Messages: Invalid entry, Key: <tap_throttle_queue_cap> Value: <-1>
Since this works fine with a value other than -1, I assumed the problem was not just with cbflushctl...