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I more or less agree with what's been said.
If it's been powered on in the last month a variac isn't going to help.
Pretty much all sets prior to ~64 had paper caps and those are usually all bad... sometimes enough of them are just barely semi-good enough for the set to run a few minutes or hours with them, but they're short fuse time bombs... Lytics often are as bad.
If a sets been on recently may as well raw dog it with wall voltage, if a set hasn't I sometimes bring a variac, always bring a CRT tester and often a test pattern generator when I have reason to be optimistic.
Hot chassis have existed since the 30s and haven't gone away...There are still TVs today with a partial hot chassis. Post-WWII rules got more stringent about not exposing the chassis to the outside of the cabinet so chassis bolts stopped being threaded into the chassis and instead into plastic blocks, knob shafts had to be cold or deeply recessed with a cabinet captive knob, tube shields had to be captive in metal cabinet sets to avoid shorting chassis to cabinet, etc.
Hot chassis aren't a fundamentally bad design, just a cost saving measure. Theres always been hot chassis sets and there's always been transformer sets.
You only need an isolation transformer if you are repairing the set and need to connect AC powered test equipment (It's good for general safety during repair too, but not strictly necessary if you aren't using AC powered test equipment and know how to work safe).
If you want a working tube era set for regular use you basically have to learn how to fix it yourself or be friends with a technician. An unrestored working set probably won't last a month of say 6 hours a week run time, a restored set may last 6 months to 6 years like that, but will need service eventually.
When tube sets were new we had a repair industry in this country for a reason.
That said repair can be a fun and rewarding hobby.
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