Foot Size Difference - Effect on Fit and Remedies?

I’ve found at least one prior thread on this subject, but I find myself still a little unclear. In paying more attention to my feet, it turns out one is substantially smaller than the other, maybe almost 1cm or a whole shoe size or so. Not really sure how I missed this for like 30 years, but here we are.

I have a tendency to drop that hip down and forward, and I always thought it was due to some pelvic imbalance or leg length issue. However, could my smaller foot be to blame?

All other things being equal (leg length shoe size, etc.), if a rider has one smaller/shorter foot, wouldn’t that make that leg “act” shorter? Wouldn’t it also make the foot want to “slide forward” in the shoe over the pedal a bit, also pulling that hip down and forward? If I’m right on this, wouldn’t this make the logical solution to shim the shorter/smaller foot?

Staggering the cleat forward on the shorter foot seems problematic to me. After all, staggering cleats would just make the smaller foot potentially more unstable, as the cleat is already effectively farther forward relative to the metatarsals and overall foot length. This is especially true if your shoe for the smaller foot is already a bit “accidentally” too big. Moving it forward even more would just create more problems, right?

Any fitters with experience in this realm to share? Good solutions?