I have a lath and plaster ceiling that has seen better days and so I'm
considering overboarding and skimming.

Just trying to think through how this is done: Presumably it's possible
to find the joists because that's where all the nails are, holding the
laths in place but screwing through the pb into them would run a better
than avaerage chance of hitting a nail.

So how is it done? Aim for the timbers and accept that many screws will
hit nails or just screw through at random and rely on hitting laths more
often than not?