I took some pictures with the digital microscope of the aluminum standoffs removed from ETMX. The first one had some leftover epoxy still attached, so I was able to distinguish which part of the groove was occupied by the wire. A better microscope would help (this one has a maximum magification of 80, 200 or so would be much better) but I was still able to see what looks like a second minimum inside the groove at the wire location (see Attachments 1 and 2). The bottom edge of the standoff shows the profile of the groove on the opposite side from the glue. I took several photos with different lighting angles and at different locations on the microscope stage and convinced myself that this was not just an artificial effect. I also took photos of the groove in a different place and did not see this feature (Attachment 3).

The other standoff in the same container had no visible damage to the groove or to the body of the rod. I rotated it under the mocroscope and could celarly see the 'V' shape all the way around. The smooth undanaged groove caught the light more easily and was obvious. The damaged one is scratched around much of the surface, but the undamaged standoff is very smooth. Eric, were both aluminum standoffs in the container with the extra ruby one taken off ETMX, or was one of them new? in any case, see Attachement 4 for a comparison. The believed damage is somewhat visible on the top edge of the lower standoff in the photo. 

[Edit:] Also, in the drawings it looks like the specified radius for the bottom of the groove (0.001 in) is smaller than the radius of the wire (0.00085 in). This would prevent having two clean points of contact like Steve and Gautam were describing as the goal. This is also true of drawings for the new Sapphire guiderods, though the dimensions are in metric units the specified radius of the groove bottom is smaller than the wire's diameter, but larger than its radius. Maybe this providied the initial ability for the wire to move around and carve two distinct grooves.