There is no need to perform the CRT discharge ritual if you are not going to remove the HV lead from the CRT. Yes, it's standard advice from the manufacturer, but following it makes sense only if you are going to separate the analog board from the CRT.

Most CRT circuits have quite minimal self-discharge means, and the compacts are no exception. If you do not want to use the "grounded screwdriver" discharge method, simply crank up the brightness, verify that all disk activity has ceased, and then pull out the AC power cord. The residual beam current suffices to discharge the HV to quite low levels.