One other trivial thought, . . .
A FAST AT could handle 1:1 interleave.
On many slower ones, an interleave could give dramatic improvement in
throughput.
Not having the optimum interleave will not interfere with usage, it is
entirely a performance optimization.
There were even programs that purported to determine the optimum
interleave for you. Unfortunately, the application software that you use
(dBase, Wordstar, Supercalc, etc.) does more processing of the data
between sectors than only reading it. So the true optimum interleave was
also dependent on what programs you used.
Either Speedstor or SPinrite included capability of changing the
interleave (by reading a track, reformatting the track with sectors in
different sequence, and then writing the data back to the track.)
Don't worry about the interleave until you get it to work.
An old hot-rodding adage (that few abided by):
"get it to RUN, before you try to get it to RUN FAST."
