Vinyl heresy-overhang induced distortion is not that important

Yeah, I know it was a bit unkind to bring this up but if Raul is going to post, Yoda-talk aside, make a point in linear fashion and stop throwing darts at four different walls leaving it up to us to draw the lines (lots of metaphors there). Yes, Raul is obviously very knowledgeable. That just makes it more frustrating. If he knew nothing, I would not waste my time responding to him or trying to read his posts. 
Raul, your by-line is "enjoy the Music Not Distortions". So I will make my point again since you seem to ignore it. You can work on reducing distortion but you can not eliminate it. You can work on maximizing the relatively benign distortions (odd order) and minimizing the more harmful even order distortion (and yes, there are many other types of distortion including the type we are discussing), but you CAN NOT eliminate distortion Raul! Your listening room adds distortion. Do you use headphones? Well the transducers add distortion. I don't give a rat's pa-toot if you use solid state or tubed electronics, you are adding distortion. Digital gear-distortion! Better tubed gear has less harmful/unwanted even order distortion than solid state but tubes bring their own set of problems/shortcomings so you gotta pick your poison, no amp is perfect or even close. And Raul, there is distortion recorded into the master tape from the microphones, the recording booth, the recording electronics, and more. And Raul, you're listening to a facsimile of the real thing-the minute you make a recording of anything real and try to play it back, you are working on creating a very rough illusion of reality. In real life, we don't hear in Stereo or multichannel. Human ears/brains hear real sound differently than recorded and reproduced sound. 
And the conclusion to be drawn as I set forth in my OP is that overhang-arc induced vinyl playback distortion is minimal in comparison to so many others.  Let me draw this analogy since I have to go on a dreaded cruise in May that I don't really want to go on-dwelling on perfect cartridge alignment is like scraping barnacles off a cruise ship hoping it will sail faster as a result. I am in favor of getting as close as you can. Doesn't hurt. But like I said, VTA, SRA, VTF, azimuth, and quality of the drive and tonearm are more important. 

The odd thing is that Raul's native language is Spanish, or I assume it to be.  In Spanish and other Romance languages, the verb usually does not come last in a sentence.  Truth be told, I usually understand Raul, but I did not understand all the nuances of his latest diatribe against me, as noted above.  I just tried to get the gist of it. 

What Raul was saying is:
I (LewM) cannot hear the differences afforded by exact proper alignment, because:
(1) I use "tubes". (Note that he is essentially incorrect regarding my Beveridge system.)
(2) Raul once owned an underhung tonearm (the RS Labs RS-A1).  He didn't like it.
(2) I am not a trained listener, as he is.  None of us is trained, but Raul is trained.  He trained himself.
(3) We should enjoy the "music", even though we are not worthy.

So, I ask Raul or anyone else to produce data to support his underlying assumption that proper alignment according to one of the three standard algorithms (Lofgren, Baerwald, Stevenson) produces less or lower audio signal distortion over the course of playing a typical LP than would be the case if the alignment did not conform to any of those standards. Here we have to be careful, because, as I noted, it is fairly easy to misalign the cartridge to such a degree that there are no/zero null points achieved across the entire surface of an LP.  Whereas, there are probably un-documented alignments that do result in 2 null points.  So, we have to decide on what alignments to compare. I have done an internet search to find out whether there is a published paper on this subject, from the AES, for example, and I don't find any.  Baerwald's alignment was published in 1941!!!  What one would do is to measure THD at the output of a phono stage vs time (t) from the start of play to the run-out grooves, using a test LP that encodes a single pure tone.  Then plot THD vs t for two or more alignments.  If alignment is critical, then THD should be minimal at the exact moment when the cantilever is tangent to the groove, etc.  The time-based data could be converted to THD vs distance from outermost groove to innermost groove.

The funny thing is, I had the serendipitous experience that leads me to question the need for precise alignment using Baerwald, Lofgren, or Stevenson, only about 2 weeks ago.  And it was unexpected. But I'd like to know "the truth", or a better approximation of it.

Lewm;
Great post. I believe that there have been some scholarly articles published in Stereophile on the subject. The popular alignments do a fairly good job of minimizing average distortion over the course of the side depending upon multiple factors; primarily inner groove circumference and whether crescendos toward the end of the side-if you are a classical music fan-should be optimized. 
I totally buy into the notion that having two null points and having them strategically placed apart from each other with the lowest possible distortion in between and beyond them is preferable in an abstract world. My OP was to discuss relativity of this topic in a real-world audio system. 

I think we all knee jerk into conflating distortion with noise or some other objectionable sound.  In reality, distortion is only the difference between the input and the output of a device.  A parametric equalizer, which virtually every mastering engineer uses, technically distorts the sound, but in a way that the engineer believes will make it more pleasing to the ear, not less.  So when a cartridge is not optimally aligned, while I agree there may be more distortion over the arc, it may well be preferable to the listener, unless it causes mistracking, which I would think everyone would find objectionable.  Most turntable manufacturers and recognized experts, for whatever that's worth, seem to say that the sound will be better with as close-to-perfect alignment as possible.  Once you get to a certain level in this hobby, "better" becomes very subjective.  Even if distortion is measurably higher in a given component, one may prefer the sound to another better-measuring component.  

Actually, Spanish has considerable fluidity w.r.t. Subject Verb and Object.

Just about any combination of SVO is possible, depending on which part of the utterance you're putting the emphasis on. Not too much room for ambiguity, given common sense construal of the sentence and particularly if a "personal a" is involved, indicating which is the Object.