What that open does is it matches the height of the column, not the module. On the screenshot above, you won’t be able to tell the left column from the right column. Try placing a background color for each and you’ll notice they both have equal heights.
Re center aligning the items vertically, what browser are you using? I just realized the code I gave there only works for a few. Also, can you share the URL of the page you’re working on so we can check?
Are you referring to the Menu module with the menu items Products, About and News?
If so, you appear to have added padding to the column. If you open the Column settings and navigate to the Advanced tab. You should be able to set the padding top to 0. Which will resolve the alignment issue.