Issue split from #6951

our pytest output has a pretty low signal:noise ratio, and it's often difficult to understand the cause of a test failure, if there is one. Example: a 8600-line log for what turned out to be a flaky test that passed on a second run.

suggested improvements

• there's almost certainly some pytest configuration that would help with this. Adjust circleci config and local testing scripts to reduce verbosity.
• better isolate (or reduce) stateful tests.