BlankMike,  I agree with what you said in principle.  If you have a perfect 
match, feedline length is completely irrelevant except that you want to keep 
the feedline shorter to avoid signal loss.  Of course, at 160 meters, this 
is not really much of a consideration.

But, sometimes, trimming a bit from the feedline can help the tuner because 
of the VSWR measurements.  I was always taught that if you can't measure the 
SWR at the antenna feedpoint, there could be differences as you measure 
along a feedline unless you measure at true half-wave equivalents.

Here is a good discussion of SWR and how it is really unimportant in antenna 
radiation, as long as it is reasonable it hardly contributes to signal loss. 
Most signal loss is due to inefficient antennas.

http://www.antennex.com/preview/vswr.htm


Steve
Lansing, MI