re the jitter positioning on a disc, i remember that article,they had what looked to be a very poor copy of a led zep cd label. they claimed it was the map of the jitter, so it they weren't bullshitting it was good correlation to the disc print.
in my experience cd lathing works, well enough to be able to spot the lathed disc in a blind test against the same disc unlathed pretty much 95% of the time. but at the same time there have been a few disc i couldn't hear the differnece at all, but only a very small number. so i figure it is disc dependant and whatever it fixes is variable according to who made the disc, or whatever.
cd mats, i've tried a few and am currently messing with adhesive .5mm copper foil which does something, at least i think it does, its not night and day like the lathe is when it works.
what did work massively though was shielding the inside of the motor cutout on a Rega deck and wrapping the motor. now my Rega has no motor-induced end of side hum. none. which is pretty fucking exceptional as Rega's hum like a bitch.
well at least my P5 did. ( took about 3 layers to do it though).