Help me understand cartridge alignment

I have said this before and will say it again. VTF, leveling, azimuth, and twist (horizontal alignment) are far more important than "optimum" spindle to stylus distance aka overhang. If you resort to a spherical stylus even twist is not crucial. An old hand at TT set-up once proved this to me. He wanted to hear my deck but did not want to spend the time to optimize set-up with a new cartridge. He said "you can slam the cartridge forward in the headshell, set VTF and azimuth and do an approximation of twist and the sound will be fine". The sound was amazing. So my point is that "alignment" is a nebulous term. Most of us define it as so-called perfect alignment including overhang or pivot to stylus which is only a compromise.

Beware.  Many so-called high-end cartridges do not have accurately mounted stylii.  They are often out by a few degrees, nulling all the efforts we make in set-up.

Uh,what does a linear tracker do to solve problems with stylii not mounted square to the cantilever? 

@gregchick0 , your unusual but sincere post made me curious and so I viewed your posts in the last month since joining this forum. You sound like an interesting person, truly. So sorry for the thread drift but how about telling us more about yourself. Nationality? Occupation? Why did you join here? System details?

@gregchick0 Well, to keep the groove on thread and track, your sell-deprecation is admirable but I am not sure one has to have the hearing of a teenager to appreciate the sound of a great vinyl rig. I saw that you posted previously about cleaning records so you do have a turntable and yet you seem to mostly mention streaming. I take it your point is that access to all-important music is so [nearly] unlimited with streaming and that the music must come first for all of us, and particularly for you with old man's disease. My own belief system is that digital and vinyl will never sound alike. And contrary to the beliefs of some, it is not about so-called masking due to euphonic distortion. Instead it is simply due to radically different technologies and the amazing ability of most music lovers to discern differences over time. I am willing to venture a guess that with the right system you too would appreciate the SQ with an optimally set up table. IMHO, 70-80% of the time if you stream an album and compare it to playing the same album on a top vinyl rig the digital will win simply because having a great pressing is so vital and so hard to obtain-involving pure luck way too often. But that 20-30% of the time when you do have a great pressing of what you are in the mood for hearing, the vinyl version soars above. As it so happens, I have an exceptional pressing of Bitches Brew.