... the paper surface is pink or, I guess, magenta. (before processing) Why is this? Is it for color correction as in they add magenta filtration to correct for a magenta color cast that the response of the paper would have otherwise? Also noticed that Fuji CA is blue, not what I would call cyan, but light blue.
That is my understanding too. The overcoat I beleive is used to adjust the spectral response of the paper. I have RA-4 supra III that is light green towards cyan, and portra B&W ra-4 that is light purple.
Scour for an old Kodak Darkroom Dataguide from the mid 80's if you can find one. There is a great ring around poster of a dancer stretched in pose against a neutral backdrop, with all sorts of colur varations , and how to filter to get to where it should be, as well as a strip of exposures an the adjustment in exposure to get where you want to be.
The other big help to me, a sporadic colour printer, are the Kodak print viewing filter set. You get 6 cards with three windows of filtration with 10, 20 and 40CC of filtration density, for red, cyan, yellow, blue, green and magenta. It is handy to sort out colour casts.
The other handy tool if you make a habit of shooting a grey card on a roll for each liting situation is a publication called the Ektacolour filter finder kit. It's key is a transparent piece of 4x5 film with a set of filter varaiations that you overprint the grey card portion of the negative onto. You use a desnity spot reference to pick the exposure sorrection, and look for which of the 100 or so littel sqaures is actually grey without colour cast. Unicolour made such a slide as well.