Tonearm relative to Plinth alignment

I'm not sure I follow you - are you thinking that loosening the 3 screws may allow the arm to rotate back to its parallel position? Another option may be the VTA set screw. I'm not familiar with the Basic, but my Ittok has a single set screw on the collar - and when you loosen it you can adjust the vertical alignment and also rotate the arm.

No, there are 3 set screws so when they are screwed in, even loosely, you can't rotate it. Here is a picture so you can see:

http://128.121.219.98/i/c/f/1191460316.jpg

There would be no way to get it straight short of drilling new holes, so I was wondering if having it start at a few degrees rotation would affect the sound.

As long as your cartridge (cantilever) is properly aligned using a protractor suitable for the tonearm, this shouldn't affect the sound.

I'll defer to Doug's view on the effect, but I still think you can straighten it by rotating the arm in its pivot. If you look at this picture, you can see one set screw that fits horizontally into the pivot plate (ie the round plate that fastens to the plinth). If you loosen it with a hex key you the arm will become free so you can adjust the vertical alignment as well as the alignment to the plinth. Finally - forgive me for stating the obvious - be very careful of your stylus is you loosen this set screw. You may want to prop up the arm with something so the vertical position can't drop.

This is how Linn arms adjust VTA. If it were me, I'd straigten it, though I would not redrill the mounting holes.