Remove all mutation of arguments from query_registry_db_with_search_after()

[alexdunnjpl]

💡 Description

1. query dict is constructed for dedicated use by a function call
2. query dict needs to be reused later, ex. by get_query_hits_count()
3. now you're getting weird errors about "sort must have n values" because a search-after value was mutated into the object you thought was just a clean copy of the query

Side-effect mutation is bad, m'kay?

Current bandaid is to return the dict from a function instead of instantiating it ahead of time, so it's fresh each time, but doing that is how I ended up chasing my tail a second time.

⚔️ Parent Epic / Related Tickets

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