Given that you're rusty and historically only b/e at NL10, there's no apparent reason to think you won't lose at NL25. So your expectation is -EV.

If you are willing and can afford to lose money while you learn to beat NL25, that's completely up to you. And having a stop-loss will help mitigate the damage. But do you truly believe you won't be forced to drop to 10NL? And if that's the most likely result, it seems to give even more weight to starting lower.

I tend to think the best plan is to start at NL2. You barely beat it before over a decent-sized sample, which tells me your game had plenty of room for improvement. It probably needs even more now.

And paying lower % rake is a dead awful reason to play at a higher buyin level where your EV inclusive of rake is probably a lot worse.