Excellent post explaining squish and the relationships between the pieces, Tech. I really enjoy reading and learning more about these things from your experience base, and you're a good writer.
The one thing that jumped out at me is the gasket thickness - it seems that you could pick up ten to fifteen thousandths by using a thinner gasket, getting you down into the .055 to .060 range. Pat, you mentioned a long board and some 80 grit. Would it be possible to keep things flat and take off another .010 to .015 with elbow grease? Too much risk of getting it crooked? Just wondering after reading both yours and Tech's posts. May not be worth the risk for a basic stock rebuild where the decision has been made that the lower end is not being touched (no new pistons).