I thought I'd been pretty thorough in considering the available variables, but I'd never thought of playing with the anti-skate correction. My deck has only three settings, but I suppose I could adjust the tracking force to get more control, since the two are supposed to be related.
As far as meths destroying (possibly) the playability of the disc in future. 20 years ago I would have been cleaning second-hand discs only thinking to improve my listening pleasure in future.
But now I imagine we are all 'playing' the same game. We are correcting vinyl with a view to subsequently playing only the resulting CD. Meths is not something I would use every time . Perhaps 10% of the records That I process display the distortion characteristics I now associate with old, hard 'crud'.
After so many very second-hand discs, it is now odd to play and process an album I bought new , and find that a complete side only requires a handful of corrections. But, until recently , I had considered singles as throwaway items , and am now amazed at the basic integrity of the music contained on 40+ year-old discs that have been played and played without regard to their longevity.