Man, that thing about slowing down at the end of a cut hits home. I took a woodshop class in high school and the teacher was this old guy named Mr. Pruitt who wore the same Cardinals cap every single day. He caught me racing through a crosscut on a piece of walnut and just stood there shaking his head, then walked off without a word. Next class he taped a penny to my saw handle and said if I rushed, the penny would fall off. Sounds dumb but I still think about that penny like twenty years later. Funny how one little trick from somebody sticks with you way longer than the actual lesson.

The torque value with anti-seize isn't really fooling the wrench into thinking it's tighter, it's the other way around. Lubricated threads need less torque for the same clamp load, so 18 ft-lbs with goop is actually giving you about the same stretch as 30 dry, maybe a bit less. Plenty of Lycoming guys have run anti-seize for decades at the low end of the range without plugs backing out, so I doubt the goop itself caused that quarter turn you saw. More likely the dry ones just carboned up and stuck a bit, which feels smooth when you break them loose. The real reason to skip it now is that Champion and Tempest both changed their guidance years ago and say install dry unless the hole is new or repaired, which lines up with what you're doing. You're not late to the party so much as the party moved and you caught up.