Thomas,
Actually F&P included Deuterated Nickel in their "CF" patent from1989.
So they had an idea that CF would work in other materials than Pd. Materials that have the ability for high Hydrogen loading. May be F&P Focused on the wrong material, and got hung up in Palladium, when Nickel was a better choice?
Anyway. Excess heat in Dry Ni-H was not discovered by Rossi, but inside University research in the early 90's.
I've found some very interesting papers, with dry Ni-H cells and more powerfull than F&P cells (it seems).
That's probably where Rossi got his idea from.
I'll come back with more info when I've read the papers.