If you think about it, distance settings can't be affected by frequency response because you're setting delays for each channel independently....
Yuuup...
...So you can do distance settings before or after the EQ step.
You set distance BEFORE messing w/levels or eq. You made clear why in the latter part of your post.
It's different when setting levels. As mentioned before, frequency response can affect levels setting: e.g., a large peak (or dip) can throw off a SPL meter, making the channel seem louder (or softer) than it really is, resulting in the level being set incorrectly. Smoothening out the response for each channel first (to whatever extent you can) will subsequently make for more closely matched levels.
Yes!