Have I finally lost my mind?

I'll have to cast another vote for "yes." Absolutely. Nothing personal, and nothing necessarily to do with the question at hand, and nothing I haven't wondered myself, but a resounding "yes" nonetheless. I'll even do you one better and offer that every last one of us populating these boards and obsessing over the the littlest details to the point that we just know, but KNOW, how desperately important they are (and they are) are plumb off our rockers. Might even go so far as to say that there are pronounced twinges of fetishism and OCD in this glorious affliction. Sure is fun though, eh?

Sean, I had no idea -- thanks for the tip and I'll check into the Audio Desk System. Tireguy, Mezmo is likely correct. The weight of the ink so close to the center is probably not substantial enough to make a noticeable difference. But, why not try marking an "imbalanced" CD label with a pencil to try getting it to balance and see if you notice a difference? You can always erase it. If my system were not in storage, I'd try it myself and report on it. We are one obsessive lot, aren't we? ;-)

P.S. I suspect that analog would be less affected since the album mass is much higher, the rotation speed is lower (I think) and a good platter/clamp combo would likely keep any wobbling effects down. Does that make sense?

Ozfly, I think the digital correction inherent in CD play back and the fact that CD machines are designed to change speed in relation to the diameter of the section of the disc being read might offset these issues in ways that analog may not be capable of. Don't know for sure, just a guess.