Your instances do not include politically incorrect statements (racist, sexist, or various other -ists, depending on who exactly is listening), whether factually incorrect or otherwise, which seem to be one of if not the major sources of serious offense.

A racist statement is usually one that, if accepted by the listener, will tend to lower the status of the targeted race. Same for other -ists. I'm not seeing how it doesn't fit with the status theory.

If I ran into a church picnic and started yelling obscenities, people would get offended, even though I'm not threatening their "high" status so much as advertising my "low" status.

Of course you're threatening their high status. You're implying that vulgar language is appropriate in their social circle, and the only way it could be appropriate is if they have low status.

you can make incredibly offensive comments towards a close friend with no ill effect, yet a person hearing the exchange might themselves be offended

Edit: On second thought, I think what's going on here is that once you're a close enough friend with someone, there is no longer a significant chance that you'd want to intentionally lower their status, so an otherwise offensive comment (especially in private) becomes a signal for close friendship. You're signaling that you believe your friendship is so close that your friend won't think you're intending harm, and by not taking offense, your friend then signals the same thing. This probably takes a mathematical model to make completely clear, but maybe you get the gist.