Dover,
very good, and concise, explanation. While the overhang for a different alignment scheme would result in a different angle of the cartridge that would not have the cantilever of the cartridge perpendicular to the axis of the vertical bearing of the arm, the difference in angle would be small, so that the imperfection would be more theoretical than practical. There would be only a small variance in azimuth for different settings of VTA such that I would not worry much about it.