Ok, so today I inserted a piece of Green plastigauge on the newly acquired bearing cap (with the original bearing shell) and torqued the two bolts down to 100 ft/lbs and here is the result.
When I did the same thing on the old bearing cap (the cracked one) the result was even less thick than with the new bearing cap. It was clearly compressed by not by as much as the new bearing cap.
Did I hit the bearing cap lottery?