Hello there,

I can definitely say that degassing could be a very important part of the infusion process. Maybe it might work for some people without degassing. Possible factors might be the resin, the mixing techniques, the shape of the final part, etc. At first, infusion worked quite well without degassing. There where some pinholes most times, but far less than in my wet laid parts. But as the parts became bigger and more complicated, the pinholes got more, so I tried degassing. Since then there never was a pinhole again.
You said, that the needle didn't move during cure. This implicates that you part was under full vacuum during cure. Without degassing I would recommend not to do that. The smallest bubbles become 1000 times bigger under full vacuum. If you don't want to degas, clamp of the vacuum line first, and let some additional resin soak in. Than clamp of the resin line. This should help a lot reducing pinholes.