There’s a guy on mechmarket who sells broken in creams - he seems to think the sweet spot is about 50k actuations for older batches of creams and 100k for ones from 2021 onward. https://www.reddit.com/r/mechmarket/comments/nso3h2/bulk_400_year_creams_raffle_tomorrow/
IDK if I would go that far unless you have an automated solution like he does, but some of the in depth info he has in the post can answer some of your questions (ie: max smoothness with just break in is between inks and jwk)
And I’ve only worked with way older batches of creams back when the moulds were relatively new, but I’ve never really had a problem with lubing them brand new.