I totally agree (and I’ve done hundreds)
I place markers with Ctrl+M as the LP is playing and recording in Audacity. I clean up the inter-track gaps to true silence and usually do fades (in and out) to the silence. Often I shorten the inter-track gap.
Steve has just introduce what I think is an excellent new fade-out plug-in (called pro-fade) which IMO gives amuch better fade than the current Audacity linear fade out. See this thread: Professional sounding fade out.
WC