I have never had much issue with my multiple IDI's. They have all had leaky fuel systems to. As long as I had good glow plugs, or the right amount of go juice, they come to life in almost any temperature and 9 times out of 10 don't have too much rough starts.
Even if your lift pump was letting fuel in the supply line between the filter head and the lift pump leak down, your filter would still have enough fuel for starting, it would just run rough after a few seconds. Even if you put the filter in dry it doesn't take a ton of cranking to get the low side system primed. I have a gear reduction starter on my current IDI, if I wanted to I could do every fuel filter replacement without pre filling the filter
Check valves are not needed, you can put one in your fuel system and feel all warm and fuzzy about it, but if an IDI needs a check valve to 'assist' starting and running, there is probably another issue this check valve is band-aiding (or fixing depending on how you look at it)
Besides, the old crowd that use to dominate this forum would almost always swap for a holley pump, an electric lift pump makes all this talk moot. If you are that concerned, spend some cash money and go electric. Running the mechanical pump you run the slight risk of fuel intrusion into the oil pan if the pump does fail that way one day.
