Forgive me? Please. Since I too can ask questions, you would not need to request forgiveness for the same.
I think it was engineered tighter for the reasons I mentioned earlier. The wear was engineered to be in the peg, as it is much easier to replace, than the worm. Lowering the rocker shaft will not bind, because the bushing is a very tight fit (of course the tighter the peg is in the slot, the more difficult to rotate the worm/steering). The rocker should only be able to rotate. Also, the worm, being locked by the bearings at either end, should only be able to rotate. Any movement other than rotational, will be "slop" in the steering. That is why the "end float" and "tight spot" are important.
The "peg spring" I think is counter effective. At first it seems plausible that the spring would keep the peg in constant tension to the groove, and hence eliminate "steering slop". But, as we all know, the roads traveled are not always perfectly smooth. The sudden bump in the road would be transferred to more tension at the peg, and the spring would allow movement, and slop.
-Then again, I did not engineer any of this and could be completely mistaken. These are simply the ideas I came to accept, and think they helped me achieve great steering out of 50 year old parts.
Incidentally, I took at least 6 boxes apart. At least 4 of these boxes had chipped worms. 1 had a shaft with the other end destroyed, probably due to incorrectly aligned shafts, or a loose coupler. The chips were probably a result of the lack of oil. In my opinion, "wear" was not detrimental to these boxes. They were not maintained properly.