It is your gun not a national treasure. Do with it what you like to make it more versatile. There are a lot of pads with different thickness to adjust lop or keep as is. To me adding an 1/4" means nothing and plastic plates tend to be about 1/4" thick so I just find a nice 1/2" pads to replace it if the lop is close to what I want. I've even thinned them down on a disc sander to alter pitch slightly as well. Easy to gain more pitch if you reduce 1/4" on the top/bottom half of the pad and taper it so it is still flat against the stock. 1/4" might be 1/2-1" pitch change for the gun.
Pachmayr made a solid, old English pad that came in 1/2" or less thickness in brown, black and red with a smooth leather type face. I bought 25-30 off EBay for less than three dollars each. Been using them up for years on doubles. Easy to heat and bend to curve if needed, cheap and they look great on a double. I use red for rifles and black and brown for doubles. It's not recoil reduction I'm after but I like the non slip surface and it does protect the stock well. Again since I don't cut the stock it is completely reversible.
