Is there any reason or need to de-stat phono cartridges?

I bought a Shelter 201 a month ago and have been playing it in, usually 2-4 LPs a day covering a wide variety of music. I'm really happy with the cartridge, but yesterday I was noticing some inner groove distortion on just a couple of records. It got me trying a bunch of adjustments to try to reduce it (it's probably a flaw in the mastering). I checked the tracking angle, raised and lowered the tonearm in fine increments, and checked and leveled the azimuth (the detachable headshell has adjustable azimuth). 

When I corrected the azimuth the left channel disappeared. At that point I swapped in a pre-mounted Denon DL-160 and put the Shelter aside until today.

When I looked more closely at the Shelter I could see that one of the cartridge leads had slipped off the cartridge pin. The pins of the Shelter seem to be a bit narrow and I remember trying to crimp the tags to get a better fit. Apparently I didn't crimp hard enough. So I detached the leads from both ends, turned them around and discovered I got a better fit. I re-mounted the cartridge that way.

When I put the cart back on the TT, it sounded very vivid but the inner clarity was a little off. So then I took the VTA all the way down so the headshell appeared to be level. Holy Moly! The clouds parted and the sun came out. It was as dramatic as if I'd retubed both my phono and line stages with NOS Telefunkens.

Maybe it was benefitting from snugger connections; maybe the leads were somewhat directional and reversing them helped; maybe the right VTA can heal the sick and raise the dead.

But there's this one other variable: The headshell, the leads, and the cartridge had all been disconnected from the tonearm and from each other. Any chance that 1/2 hour in this state would have allowed for some discharge? I can imagine the possibility of static buildup in a cartridge when it's dragged across miles of vinyl and it feeds a box full of magnets, coils, and wiring.

Thoughts? Feelings? Opinions? Similar experiences? Will a Milty Zerostat enhance my quality of life? :)