I run mine as low as possible, but I've never heard of anyone not using anti-skate force at all - in fact, I was under the impression that it was fairly impossible to do that.
Never use it. My 12" arm has no anti-skating provisions. Neither does the Empire setup I use mostly for 78s (this one, with a Stanton 881 and set for LPs, will track all four torture tracks of that HiFi News test record). The second arm on my main table, an SME IIIs, can be set for anti-skating, but I don't employ it.
None other than the twist in the tonearm wires in the JMW 9 arm to the junction box. It sounds better without than with and does not seem to affect tracking. FWIW
Of course nobody used antiskating in the good old days when cartridges tracked at a VTF of about five grams. There was no provision for anti-skating on the arms.
Skating force is not a theory. Geometry causes it. The exact amount of force varies depending on the drag of the stylus in the groove, and that varies for many reasons. But it's never zero. Antiskating became important when cartridges tracking at 1-2 grams came along.
Yes. You can operate without antiskating, but you will need to use a higher-than-optimum VTF or you must tolerate occasional mistracking.
Of course the real solution is a linear tracking arm.
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