I think there is a need for changing the gain of this stage, because the output level of it is limited by the clipping diodes.That wouldn’t reduce the gain much more, you’d be better off increasing the 2k resistor on q2’s emitter as well
After initial doubts about the AC128 stage of The Keeley Germaium Amplifier which has no base resistor,
but in that case the resistor is not needed because the biasing is achieved by the Emitter leakage current in combination with the Emitter resistor.
I still have my doubts as to the oparation without the 470k resistor.
I had thougts about and made some trials and found that the FET without the gate resistor acts as a voltage controlled resistor,
this explains why there is no stage gain in that case.