The documentation for 'org-export-headline-levels' seems problematic. I was going to suggest a patch, but thought I'd ask first.
The problem is in the definition of 'level'. One could see a header with one '*' as "above" one with two. On the other hand, the value of this variable is a number and, so, without further explanation, someone (me) might read a value of '3' as encompassing values below '3' and, thus, confuse the term "above" in the docstring (and Org Manual) to mean greater than 3. Do others see this? -- David Masterson