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You’re ahead of me, I have the advice and source, but obviously haven’t grasped what’s going on. Just found 10d solution has only four letters, so am baffled.
Can you help with 6 or 7d? I have several letters in each but now don’t know if they have 7 letters or not!

lumen, only the top and bottom rows are affected, and it's only the across entries that show what those effects are (in 2 different ways). The down clues that run through them just make way for the effects, they're not affected as such. So, 4d has no gaps, 7 down has one gap and (as you've seen) 10d has one gap - these 'gaps' are what affects the top rows across entries, which are all of a type.

...sorry, it was 6d you were asking about - that doesn't have a gap.

...and 4d DOES have one gap (very sorry about that).

Thanks Drxx.

6d - 'one lacking' = a requirer (6 letters) around L (move a letter from the third word to the last word for the def).
7d a letter (from the 3rd word) must be added to the first word giving the def. The last 3 words of the clue give the def for the last 4 letters of the answer (following on from STreet).

Thanks, I was trying to clear my head, doing a bit of gardening.
I guess you meant to say only affects the TWO top and bottom rows?
I have 6 and 7 down now but still don't see the reason for the gaps. I don't see any gaps in the bottom rows. Maybe its the same rule for rows 1 and 2, and different rule for rows 12 and 13...I was assuming it would be symmetrical.

The bottom rows are collectively affected - there are no gaps, but there are removals (if you look down at the pattern I gave earlier with the '*'s the '/'s show where the breaks are for each of the affected entries).
Once you know what the thematic character is likely to suffer (if not safe/gradual) it all makes sense.

Lumen, it's a bit of a strange one. The problem with one pair of rows isn't the same as the other pair. Also, the answers in one set are of a type that ****s (which is one of the answers) but I can't see any relevance relating to that fact. I also thought that the surpluses in the other area might spell something but I don't think they do - unless I've gone horribly wrong.

The end-game relates to two problems for something in the advice but if you safely transitioned from one to the other you would still be in a world of trouble so 'safer' is not really the right word!

At least, that's how I see it. Could be wrong.

The removals do make a word, granama1 - you'd ''lose ?????????????'' down below (and certain parts of the body are affected by bubbles up above).