Any valve lash advice from the gurus?

What is the point of going over spec anyway? I see that all over the place.
I like setting them looser i dunno why but they seem to idle smoother and run better on a stock slant six camshaft though. It took me a while to figure out how to set my lash for my clifford performance camshaft due to it being installed in the engine when it was rebuilt before i purchased it. i had no card to go off of. i ended up with Intake.16 Exhaust.18 and it runs great with a nice beefy idle.

It is said that setting you valve lash looser helps with compression, so on a worn used motor it will wake it up a bit.