Does removing anti-skating really improve sound?

Obviously, your TT was not set up properly, and\or the anti skate is miscalibrated or out of spec. Grace recommended setting the antiskate by looking at the stylus as an LP plays, then adjusting it until the stylus remains the straightest.

lewm

... Of course headshell offset angle and other reasons for lack of tangency of the cantilever to the groove are what results in the skating force ...

Exactly, and that's been my point. We're much more in agreement here than not.

but there would be no FORCE, with a capital F, without the need to oppose the force of friction between stylus tip and groove

Yes, friction is a factor with LP playback and, for that matter, everything else that has moving parts. That doesn't mean friction is the cause of skating force, and you do seem to understand that. So there's no reason to continue this little debate.

This is going to be cartridge dependent. No brand, not even model. Each will be different. I would think models will be similar, though. I've had cartridges that perform best with no bias, very little bias, and bias set much closer to the VTF setting. So why use it? Because I don't own your cartridge.

If using no a/s you get abit of mistracking use a bit more vtf

Cleeds, with all due respect, can you consider the condition where there is no friction between the stylus and the groove? Can you tell me where the skating force would come from if that were the case? Are you capable of thinking this through to its logical conclusion? I really don’t care whether you see the point or not, but I do not like to see incorrect information put forward on the Internet where people read it and believe it. 

As I recall, you also claimed that a tonearm without headshell offset would generate no skating force. Anyone who could say that does not understand what’s going on.