Just to add to this, I've stumbled across another forum post on the topic of AFNI slice timing correction (https://github.com/poldracklab/fmriprep/issues/1345), which I THINK validates the series of steps I've highlighted above, with the added caveat that slice timing correction should really be done before applying any other modifications to the functional volume - on the off chance that other changes the functional volume could introduce an undesirable discrepancy between the output of 3dinfo and the increasing indices along the k data axis of the data block.
Does this all sound about right?
Best,
Rich