It may strike some of you as strange, but when I think of what takes place with (and without) antiskating force applied, and the benefits to playback (or lack of them ;-) my attention is not on the interaction of the stylus and groove, simply because the range of forces we're talking about w/ or w/o AS is minuscule.
It is my assertion that when someone perceives different playback qualities w/ or w/o AS, it's due not to the very slight differences in the stylus-groovewall pressure, but rather the accuracy with which the coils (or MM) are in alignment with the stationery parts of the cartridge: the magnetic pole pieces (MC) or the field coils (MM).
In the case of a MM cartridge, the magnet has a very small force field, and if it is being held slightly off-center by some skating force pushing sideways on the cantilever (see Thomas' picture;-), then its force field will not penetrate the coils equally.
Similarly, moving coil cartridges are designed with a little "English" on the suspension, so that at the optimum VTF, the coil/armature is at a perfect right angle to the (very powerful) magnetic force field created by the pole pieces. In fact if you search the vdH website, you'll find that A.J. himself recommends setting the VTF visually -- applying just enough VTF so that when the stylus is placed on the record, and the cartridge viewed from the front, the cantilever passes "right through the center" of the hole in the front pole piece! According to him, that's how you know the coils are lined up with the magnetic field and will produce the most output.
My point, is that different cartridges, due to their coil/magnet configuration, the strength of the magnets, the layout of the pole pieces, etc., may not all exhibit the same sensitivity to the slight misalignment resulting from a little skating force (or too much antiskating force!) And that it's not really about the stylus in the groove.
Doug also touched on an important point when he mentioned that correct AS will (these days) be much less than equal to the VTF! This is because that (old) standard was based on spherical and elliptical styli which develop much more friction in the groove than modern line contact or micro-ridge styli.
By the way, trying to set AS using a blank record surface is like testing your brakes on a frozen lake! If the stylus can't develop any friction (which it can't on a blank surface) then there will be NO skating force produced. Yes I KNOW, if you set the stylus on a blank record, the tonearm literally FLIES toward the label! But that's not due to skating force. In most cases, it's due to the twisting of the internal tonearm wiring -- something that causes even tangential arms to move across blank records! If you try and set AS using a blank track, you will be applying WAY too much AS!
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