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The first set I ever repaired was my '59 Magnavox combo, and for a while after I fixed it it was my only working set, but nearly every weekend when I sat down to watch tv, I found I had to pull the chassis to replace more caps. Eventually I had replaced nearly all of the paper caps, and a few electrolytics over a period of a few months (it worked like that for a few years until I gave it a full recap when I swapped the picture tube last year) Now I just like to do a full recap (paper and electrolytics) at the beginning.
With late 60s and 70s sets (when there were few if any paper caps anyway, and the electroyltics are usually ok), I usually just try them out, and only replace parts as needed (my '70 23" Zenith b/w is still running on the original electrolytics, and works great). The mid-50s to mid-60s sets, I often start them up slow, just to see what's going on, they often work as is (the electrolytics in sets from this era often seem to last), but if I'm planning on using it a lot they get the recap (both paper and electrolytic caps) anyway. But as for the 40s and early 50s sets, the paper and electrolytic caps get replaced, and also any resistors in the sweep circuits that test bad, before I even start them up. (In these old sets, not only are most of the paper caps are bad, but so are most of the electrolytics, there's a good chance the power supply filter caps are shorted)
I haven't been replacing old orange drops, or any mylar caps, unless they're bad (and I don't think I've ever found a bad one). Same with the micas and ceramics, although I have also found some bad micas lately, they were turning up in the horiz sweep circuit of my '54 Westinghouse, and I sometimes find a bad ceramic cap too.
As for the old radios, I recap them like the tv's , but I often use them before I get around to it (unlike the tv's they often work as-is), lately I've been using this 1935 Truetone at my desk, and it's still got all original caps, it works ok.
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