I should probably clarify...I just wire brushed/sanded the insides of the terminals to make sure the mating surfaces were clean and flat. I didn't wire brush the whole thing.
The current capacity of a junction is directly proportional to a few things including the surface contact area, and by extension contact force. (A fun engineering exercise is making rail gun rails hard enough with a high enough melting point to maintain adequate conductivity through the shuttle while it travels down the barrel, while the same force is trying to push the rails apart and therefore reduce contact.) So problems with either of these will reduce the amount of current available to the starter.
I then re-greased the terminal and battery lugs after they were connected to prevent further oxidation. It's happens once a year or two though, so now I take a 10mm wrench out twice a year just to make sure they're tight.
Long term fix would be new/better terminals but I'm too lazy for that and my 10mm wrench's time is free...
I'm sure you knew all that, I just didn't want someone else reading it to spend their time wirebrushing external rust when it doesn't matter
