Thanks all for the replies, and I'm happy my follies provided some entertainment At the risk of digging myself deeper into my hole, some attempts at explanation...
I started with the rack and steering wheel because having seen the things that POs had done to the car, I suspected it was off center, which it turned out to be. I overlooked the center punch, so that's on me, and I'll check to see if I still ended up off center at all.
I went with toe out because John's alignment specs on Hybrid Z were the only ones I could find anywhere, so that was my starting point.
Regarding parallel: I wasn't measuring to get parallel to the car, but measuring to get the strings parallel to rear wheels. I used the same link that John posted and tried to do that.
The alignment -- used loosely -- that the car started with when I got it was absolutely bonkers. Visibly bonkers (the numbers are at home, but 5/16" out on the left and 1/4" in on the right are coming to mind), so it would have been impossible to make it worse, and I might even learn something along the way by giving it a shot myself.
Anyway, both front tires have uneven wear: both are more worn on the righthand side; additionally, the right tire has about 1/8" less tread total than the left. Considering that alone, I don't know if there's any hope to get things totally right. And that isn't a terrible problem anyway. The wheels and tires on the car are rather awful and I'm eager to replace them when the rears finally give out. At that point, I'll have it properly aligned by someone who knows what they're doing. For now, I'm happy to fiddle with it myself. It's already a whole lot better than it was.
Thanks again for the comments.