Ring Clamps. What do you think?

"Like an acoustic guitar, a record needs to breathe."

I don't think that's a very good analogy. The less a record
moves around, the better the stylus can trace the grooves. That
said, there is the Linn school of thought that believes one
should never use record clamps or anything on the record at all,
and the other extreme of heavy clamps and periphery weights to
prevent any movement.

You have to listen to it all and make your decision.
Personally, I don't want playing records to turn into a chore.
A simple record clamp works for me and I could probably just as
well live without that too.

How does a guitar sound with loose frets, fingerboard, bridge, or a delaminated soundboard? Not too good. The perimeter weight acts in a similar way as if you tightening and tune all the part of your guitar to allow it perform at its best.

Let's not compare an instrument that creates music to one that reproduces it. They have different functions.

Speakers maybe the closest to instrument tuning but turntables aim to playback what is in the grooves and eliminate as many extraneous variables as possible. There goal is to reproduce what the cutter created and to that point accurate extraction not added color via creating more resonate points.

Using a ring clamp is like any other skill, you get better with practice. I was terrified when I first started using the VPI ring clamp, but now it's like second nature, like driving a car. In truth, there is very little danger to the stylus when placing it on the record. It took me a lot of time to learn how to balance it so it is true rather than cocked. The likelihood of damaging a cartridge when lowering it is not much greater than if you cue it too close to the edge of an unringed record. For me, records sound a tad better with it in place, but I had a bigger jump in sound improvement from installing a Boston mat for 1/4 the price paid for the ring clamp.

I think a ring weight is great. I have a VPI and for many years I used a screw down clamp. The problem is that I always had to adjust the amount of pressure depending on the nature of any warp of a disk. Last year I switched to a TTWeights ring clamp and a center weight. I find that placing the ring and weight goes much easier than using the screw down clamp. You just plop them down and you're done; no adjustments. For me it's quicker. And the sound is noticeably improved. For one thing there is now more weight beyond the circumference of the platter giving extra fly wheel effect. The records are flattened and dampened. You don't want them "breathing," that is with air between them and the platter. I would never look back. As for bumping the stylus, I solved that completely with a small o-ring placed on the tonearm lift so that the stylus goes to the same exact spot on the lead-in grooves every time. Bumping is not an issue.