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I would presume ( just me talking out aloud so I could be wrong ) that if you go counterweight heavy then you don’t need to change the position of the weights depending on which side of the meridian you’re on. I think either would be fine as long as you’re marginally heavy one side to constantly rest on one side of the worm gears.
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Not quite. The RA axis always moves in the same direction. Unlike DEC any guiding corrections do not change the direction, they only slow down or speed up the movement of the axis. The mount needs to be east heavy to keep the gears engaged properly during tracking/guiding. When you do the meridian flip so that the mount is west-heavy (counter weights on west side) the tracking direction will still be the same. The gears will be engaged "the wrong way" and the backlash will become important.
(That's why east-heavy approach requires shifting of counter weights after a meridian flip.)
The DEC axis moves both ways during guiding so I am not sure any more.