NHawk, the thickness of the application of the factory-provided paste is such that putting it on the CPU itself would negate any pattern anyways. It would squash and mix together like play-doh. They might as well have just put a solid square block on like my previous HSF came with.
You want to use a very thin layer of AS5. The size of a small pea. About maybe 3 to 4 mm around. I think the instructions I printed out at home a while back suggested using a straight razor blade to squeegee it out flat across the top of the CPU, until it was nice and thin, then put the HS on top.
Oh, don't forget to clean the old factory-provided stuff off before putting AS5 on.