I noticed a significant improvement going from wet-vacuum to UltraSonic followed by Vacuum, then air dry. Particularly the sonic so-called "black background". At detergent concentrations in record cleaners, with removing most residual water-detergent by vacuum, there is no need for distilled water. I calculated it out, and there are scattered molecules of detergent on the record surface, so we are talking a few Angstrom (10-10 m) here or there so a far cry from micrometers/microns/µm (10-6 m) resolvable by stylus. A difference of 10+4 or 10,000.
If you don't vacuum and just air dry, then a DI rinse *may* be advisable as the water evaporates leaving detergent (and residual dirt) behind. Have not calculated that and even wonder whether that is justifiable.
Notice that the calculation in the record cleaning book are flawed as it goes from mass/weight to thickness without including density/specific gravity (6/0.5x12, particularly at value around 1 or 1/1=1). That's why those calculations are off by a factor of around 20K. I provided the back of the envelope math in a previous post. No need to sweat a few percent here or there when we are talking four orders of magnitude, give or take.
Additionally, tendency for static is highly location dependent. I have zero problems with it, don't have an antistatic gun or anything like that.