improve test stability when running yarn jest

improve the current yarn jest success rate by updating asserts and other low hanging fruit

in my fresh checkout i'm seeing:

```
$ yarn jest
...
Test Suites: 16 failed, 9 skipped, 137 passed, 153 of 162 total
Tests:       82 failed, 97 skipped, 3 todo, 1201 passed, 1383 total
Snapshots:   0 total
Time:        99.624 s, estimated 117 s
```