I realised I could mount several magnets at once (I originally thought that would be difficult, but seems OK), so I stripped all but a few remaining magnets (for the other magnets to key with).
I realised as I tapped the first few off that most of the magnets sitting on their own no longer had any significant adhesion! I simply pushed the rest off by hand! (Apart from the one I chipped, below.)
I had a go with the finger sander but it was too aggressive, and after I finished by hand you can see the dents it made even though I was trying to be super careful.
Then I moved on to the next 'quarter' and where the glue was put in better and there was less rust. I'm a bit dumb, I started with the better-glued end and chipped the magnet.
But at least it is cleared up now. Removing that glue was hard. I had to do it by hand and resorted to 80 grit, which I don't like getting near aluminium but it was taking too long to work off that glue with finer paper.
I have now taken the rust off 38 magnets, 5 remain on the rim, 1 snapped, 2 chipped, 2 demagnetised.
My key finding is that if the magnet(s) have gone rusty they are easy to remove and easy to clean up.
If they have been glued properly then
a) you will break them trying to get them off, and
b) it is a lot of hand sanding to remove the glue, nothing other than 'elbow grease' seems to work.
This is a dilemma because there is no way to know if a given magnet is good and solid, or rusty, until you try to take it off, and by then you will have damaged it if it was any good to begin with!
I think my advice has to be to NOT do what I have done as a pro-active step. There is no point attempting this unless and until you experience swollen magnets, because (ironically) you have to wait until they become rusty before you can take them off!
I can imagine that the glue I am about to use to put these back will never let go of the magnets again. If there are any more future problems, then I will have to make sure I have replacement magnets ready, because I am pretty sure they will not come off in one piece ever again!
It'll take several days now to clean everything up ready for reinstallation and get them glued in because I will do them slowly, in sectors. I think the whole problem has been that in manufacture the glue was allowed to flow downwards and to one side. So, that region of 'good glue' (where I chipped a few magnets) was where more of the glue ended up drying. I will try to avoid this happening again.