That was my point. Why bother to pull a perfectly good head just to mill it to increase compression, only to give back a huge chunk of the gain to a crappy modern gasket?
Actually, that is my point. If you are pulling the head to mill it, allow for the thicker aftermarket gasket ( which is available) and mill a little extra (usually doen't cost extra). The only reason to use the OEM shim gasket, would be to "freshen" up a stock engine, that does not need any machine work.
I have some "mule motors", that have no head milling or block decking, so I use the shim gasket. Any motor I build that needs decking or milling, gets the aftermarket gasket. We are only talking about approx 20 thousands difference here.
