A saying that comes to mind often: "The devil is in the details, guyz".
Our coupe rolls straight and steers and stops as it should. Yet, there is what appears to the eye as about 3/4" play in the steering wheel when the car is on the ground. If I jack the car up, with a careful eye, I can see the wheels move a bit with less than the 3/4" movement, probably half that much. Once I caught on to this, (when I worked on the front end) I can also see it when traveling down a smooth road.
I can only hypothesize a reason, and that is that the tires give a little more as the turn is initiated???
I'm not familiar with the 7 tooth box, but if one can see play when looking at the sector and worm and cannot adjust that out, I doubt you'll get down to the amount of play that a professional's overhaul would achieve. I have read that the worm is intentionally designed with increasing gap in the worm gear as it leaves dead center and approaches the worm's ends. This is to prevent binding when at maximum turning radii???