This is kind of like what happened with those plastic mattress covers everyone bought in the 90s. People thought sealing everything up was the safe move but it just traps sweat and makes mold worse. Same deal with bagging books in a damp basement, you are basically making a little terrarium for mildew. Your neighbor Dave sounds like the guy who tells you what you need to hear even if you do not want to hear it. Sometimes the best fix is just letting stuff breathe.

The "needle swing smooth and steady" thing sounds good but I gotta ask, was the digital really too twitchy, or was it just reading a bad winding and showing you numbers you didn't like? Compressor windings on a fridge, you're talking maybe a few ohms difference between good and weak, and most cheap digitals aren't great at that low end anyway. The analog isn't magic, it's just damping the readings so your eye can follow the average instead of the jumps. I'd be more ready to believe the digital needed a better meter or a tighter range, not that analog is somehow the answer.