[morzh]

Questions:
1.  Since I was able to pull in a good strong AM station, does that mean that the tubes are OK?
2.  I know this sounds like a stupid question, but why do I need to go through this "alignment" thing?  Shouldn't that have all been done at the factory?

I will take your advice seriously, and do my best to go through your recommended alignment procedure and we will see what we can get.

1. Likely but not always the case.
2. OK. Let me rephrase it: why do car tune-ups, wasn't this all tuned at the factory? The answer is, after 80 years, or in fact after any repair there is a good chance that due to some moving and touching, changing tubes etc, and due to sheer aging the parameters will drift. Capacitors age and tubes have variance to their inter-electrode capacitance which will cause misalignment.
Which is why the radios get aligned from time to time.
Unaligned radio will still work, but will not perform as well as a properly aligned one.
If you want the radio strictly as a conversation starter piece, which you can, to create a "wow!" moment, plug in, turn on and pull in a station, then unaligned one is just fine. Most times though, as a conversation starter, it does not even have to work, it may just sit there. Like an old skillet or a weaving machine.