[morzh]

But that's butchery
It's the way it's supposed to be. In fact, as many of us have more than one radio, restore another with a diode detector and then you have a nice demo of one vs another detectors' sound.

There are more than one way to butcher the detector if one wants to go there.
One is replacing C23 parallel to R18 in the detector cathode feedback with small value cap, like a few hundred pF. This makes sound noticeably better but lowers sensitivity.
Another is replacing the detector with a triode in the diode configuration (as it is in 95, 111, or 37-116 abd many others). Again, will be a gain loss. But little wiring.

I would just leave it be.
Just make sure everything is good with voltages, tubes, values and then the little distortion that will remain is native to these radios.