My nose broke!

[Danneaux]

...My memory and practice is...

Your memory and practice square with mine, Andre.

I've seen some Brooks saddles where the nose of the saddle literally tore off from overenthusiastic tensioning. They all parted around the lower side nose rivets. At the other end, I've seen saddles so slack (especially after being ridden while wet) as to "ride on the rails", so what you describe would seem to be Brooks' happy medium. I follow similar practice myself.

Best, Dan.

[Andyb1]

Agreed Both, it is the tension of the leather that is important, but how to gauge it?   The Brooks YT video simply has the guy pushing down on the saddle with his palm to get the ‘right’ tension.  And of course the tension in a sprung saddle is more difficult to feel.

After having the adjuster nut loosening on my Conquest and then fitting a new tensioning assembly I am afraid the factory setting on mine is long gone.   While I am pretty happy with the tension I have set I was just hoping there might be something more scientific like ‘from bolt snug add (x) turns of adjuster nut’ as this extension would translate to tension in the leather.
 
Edited to add:
Sheldon Brown’s advice is to leave the adjusting bolt well alone and to add lacing across the saddle if the leather starts to sag!

[PH]

Agreed Both, it is the tension of the leather that is important, but how to gauge it?   The Brooks YT video simply has the guy pushing down on the saddle with his palm to get the ‘right’ tension.  And of course the tension in a sprung saddle is more difficult to feel.

There's never going to be a precise level of tension, firstly there's a lot of variation in the leather, X tension on the bolt doesn't mean Y flex in the leather.  Then we might all have different preferences, I see people riding around on floppy hammocks compared to the tension I like.  Pressing down with your hand might be a good enough measure, though I fond just riding it would let me know when it needed a quarter turn.
Anyway, this reminds me of another reason I'm glad to be off the leather and onto the maintenance free rubber saddles. Not for everyone, but for me they're 95% comfort for 100% of the time, rather than 100% comfort for 70% of the time.