@hauie88--Nope. Back in the day, I often only listened to a selected track or two from an album, then flipped to something else. I was pretty careful to drop in the dead space between tracks, but I'm human and that's an imperfect process.
These days I do tend to listen to full sides, particularly since a lot of what I've been listening to is '70s spiritual or soul jazz and some of the tracks can take up a whole side. I will still, on occasion, do a needle drop of single track though. (I've become less dogmatic about a lot of things in my dotage).
My concern was exacerbated by the problem(s) with your cartridge--not just aiming, but the potential for mistracking and needle dropping with a skewed cantilever could make matters worse in terms of damage to the record.
These days I do tend to listen to full sides, particularly since a lot of what I've been listening to is '70s spiritual or soul jazz and some of the tracks can take up a whole side. I will still, on occasion, do a needle drop of single track though. (I've become less dogmatic about a lot of things in my dotage).
My concern was exacerbated by the problem(s) with your cartridge--not just aiming, but the potential for mistracking and needle dropping with a skewed cantilever could make matters worse in terms of damage to the record.