"Well I've done it when all else failed, and it would not result in excessive x-ray emission. I kept one such set for 10 years or so, it kept going just fine. Why do you dislike it? "

Well you got lucky. High voltage components are particularly prone to failure even at their rated voltage and you may not have had problems, but I bet out of 10 times at least 7 would be a problem.

Another thing is what did you do about deflection sensitivity ?

How do you know it did not result in excessive Xray emission ? Piece of plywood and some photographic film in a dark room ?