Vinyl heresy-overhang induced distortion is not that important

As a matter of fact you are in good company. Don't take this out of context, but in terms of what you're talking about both Michael Fremer and whoever is the lead designer at Origin Live (forget his name) have said precise alignment isn't the be-all its made out to be. Grain of salt, you will never get great imaging if its too far off. But as Fremer points out in at least one (if not all) of his alignment videos, no matter how you do it its only gonna be right at two points on a side. Rest of the time its off. Which means the rest of the time you've got tracking angle distortion. Which since a point is infinitesimally tiny means its always off. Just by varying amounts. Which if this is so important then how come nobody, ever, in the whole history of audiophiledom, ever said oooohwee I put a record on its just awful but then it gets better but then worse and worse it was getting so bad there I could hardly stand it but then it started getting better but oh no now its getting worse again? Which is exactly what happens every single side. Yet nobody ever said that. Its just one of those things audiophools obsess over.

#me too.

It'a about time someone came forward!

I always thought it was my poor hearing and possible lack of ability with my overpriced alignment jig.

Perfect excuse to upgrade the table!

Surprisingly, perhaps to you, I will be the 3rd person to find some truth in what you say. But keep in mind also that as little as 2mm of error off perfect alignment (conforming to one of the standard algorithms) can result in NO null points on the playing surface of the LP, which is to say no points where the cantilever is tangent to the groove walls.  The question in my mind is whether that matters.  It is possible that tracking angle error, and the "distortion" it produces, are over-rated as causes of truly audible distortion in playback.  Keep in mind that the algorithms for cartridge alignment by Lofgren and Baerwald were published originally in 1941.  In 1941, we did not have stereo, we did not have LPs, we had 78 rpm lacquers played back on hand cranked phonographs using steel styli of indeterminant shape. 

What started me thinking so heretically is my finding that UNDER-hung tonearms, like the Viv Float and the RS Labs RS-A1 sound so good.  If the stylus underhangs the spindle (and with ZERO headshell offset angle), then you are certain to get one and only one null point on the surface of an LP, and you can line up your tonearm so as to place that null point at the mid-point of the playing surface.  But you will ALWAYS achieve tangency at one point; there's no danger of no null points.  The "negative" consequence of this is that the max tracking angle error of an underhung tonearm at the extremes (e.g., at the innermost and outermost grooves, if you align for a null point at the mid-point) is much greater than the worst case predicted scenario for PERFECT alignment with an overhung tonearm and an offset headshell. Yet, like I said, the few underhung tonearms sound excellent and I perceive no change in the SQ across the surface of an LP, something one can sometimes perceive with a conventional overhung tonearm.  (In fact, my RS Labs tonearm can sound like a master tape.) This is despite the max tracking angle error of such tonearms.  Another way in which underhung tonearms are interesting is that the direction of the skating force changes as the stylus crosses over the single null point.  For that reason, there is no sense in using anti-skate devices.  Further, there is no added skating force due to headshell offset angle, because the headshell is not offset.

Please don't jump on me; these are just thoughts I've had.  Lately, I've done what some of you mention, just listen to cartridges in overhung tonearms without even bothering to do an "alignment".  They typically sound shockingly excellent.