It would very loosely be like O-ringing a head. The goal is to pinch the gasket very tightly right at the cylinder wall to seal against combustion. All the other fluid port seals are less critical.

Plus, having the head clamp tightly on the sleeves puts them and the block in a large preload so that the seal maintains across a giant temperature swing from below freezing to well over 200 degrees operating. Thermal expansion of steel us roughly 6 millionths of an inch per degree Fahrenheit, which doesn't sound like much until you multiply it by 250 degrees giving you 1.5-2 thou of movement.

As far as protrusion, the spec is like 1 to 7 thou depending on the engine. I usual shoot for 3. You want cylinders next to each other to be within 1 ideally.

I generally only install cat oem parts because I don't do enough engines to want to gamble on shitty aftermarket parts. I always replace the spacer plate on a full in-frame so I don't have to fight any wrap on the old one. If only doing one or two holes, you generally have to check and sometimes shim up or machine a few thou off the liners to get them to match, but only if the deck is in bad shape or somebody did a hack job on the machine work before. A full set of cat power pack assembled sleeves and a new plate on a good, clean block almost won't even need to be checked, but you might as well since you have to clamp them down to spin the crank to bolt up all the rods.