Rcprince, the DG was indeed poorly recorded, even for DG. Of course that's not SC's fault, though I wonder why they bothered to reissue this one.
From your experience and that of others it seems we just had terrible luck. I'll be very happy with clean copies of all the Deccas, and I'm certainly going to pick up some of the new Mercuries. Glad to know so many people have good experiences. It would be a shame if such fine remasterings and pressings couldn't be played cleanly.