well, with all respect, I find his readings very believable, and realistic.. considering he has NEVER done a prior inspection/adjust.. in 43k miles... or 8 years... the bike was "as delivered", and just ridden...
I use a very precise 4 place micrometer to do my measurements, as those .0005" things add up. I also use stacked feeler stock with increments to get those .0005", or other, measurments.. they do actually matter to me, when I am doing anything precise, and analyzing something, which may end up being "printed" for other folks.. just my Engineering backround that makes me do it like that.
As for measuring the "head thickness' on the buckets", I found a great amount of "adjust-ability" could be afforded, as those parts are pretty much "pulled from a bin/and combined with th shims" during assembly; there is a great amount of "swap", usability when you begin to measure all the components, and the only thing that is consumed, is "time", but when you want a perfect "combo" in fitup, time is moot.. especially when you do the job in the "off season" like when i did mine last.
It's all about "how much effort" you are willing to do, and as I am pretty analytical, and measure stuff all the time... it just made sense to me. It did allow me to make swaps of shims much easier, and if I had to buy a shim, that was not a big deal, but if I swapped a bucket or 2 and relinquished the need of buying twice the amount of shims.. that was worth it. Also freed up the options for future adjustments.