Many, many thanks for all of your inputs. I think I shall meander around a couple of them for the sake of good conversation with you all. This seems a fine group of folks with well considered thoughts, opinions, and suggestions.
First, with respect to all the positive comments surrounding Stanton/Pickering designs; when I went to work at ADC, the VP of Engineering was John Keuhn. He has recently joined ADC after having left his VP Engr position and chief designer for Walter Stanton. Apparently there was a spat with an aging Stanton and by afternoon, John was moving to ADC. The designs you have praised were his designs and he became my mentor and tutor on cartridge design. John hired me into ADC and was my practical training in engineering, design for production, and creativity. That ties my designs back to the thinking and wisdom that underlie the Stanton designs.
The above also explains my complete understanding on the comments above with respect to moving coil, moving iron, and moving magnet designs. MC was taking over the high end even in the early 80s yet the Astrion held top sway with Absolute Sound and others for a good while. Imagine, a lowly moving iron design atop the exotica mountain. Hah!! Yeah, I was happy and proud of that. And I also understand the concerns about removable/replaceable styli. Across the entire ADC product line from the lowly $5 blister pack QLM30 sold off hanging racks in Rat Shack, to the exclusively sold high end Astrion, there was only on coil form, magnetic circuit, shield can, and stylus holder design. All the product differentiation came in the diamond/stylus and, most importantly, the stylus suspension designs. But don't underestimate the subtleties of difference that were contained there. Cartridge design is 90% suspension design. Adequate damping, proper angles, stability of motional rotation, blah, blah....and no, I'm not telling all my secrets. Now, there are significant differences in the sound coloration imparted by MC, MM, and MI designs and its interesting to get the sense here that there remains room in folks systems and hearts for all of them. To Kirk57, I completely get that about tone-arms. And I'm glad you are still enjoying the LMF. Yeah, the Black Widow and LMF were the uniquely low mass designs. I was never a fan of big ol' chunky, paddle damped SME arms (and lots of others of the time) unless they were crushing some horrible non-compliant, stiff MC design into submission. I do have some MCs in my collection, and I designed a MC or two of my own and discovered that you can do MC designs that are just as compliant as other designs can be. Again, I would discuss more but here we broach the line into the black art!!
I am aware of the market situations with the long established volume brands (at least those who remain) as well as the customs like Koetsu. They were coming to the fore in high end just as I was leaving the audio business. I am also familiar with the establishment of reputation with the "golden ear" crowd and they provide more to the process and market than some folks will allow. We don't all have all the variants of sound systems necessary to fully understand the character of a design, nor do we all hear the same, not have the same taste in what musical presentation we find the most satisfying. A designer needs a circle of honest evaluators with a diversity of tastes, preferences, and equipment to best progress his designs.
Finally, I am fortunate to have had a good career in science, engineering, and the management of very technical programs and now with general management. This would become an entertainment, and expression of personal creativity and fulfillment, but doesn't need to fill a "life support" role.
Again, thanks for all your comments. I will endeavor to keep this thread open and seek your feedback on questions of your preferences and experiences with different cartridges and cartridge design.
For example, a number of you have expressed how much you like certain older designs above. I know all of those designs use modified elliptical (likely 4x7) diamonds, primarily because they were designed prior to the development of Shibata or line contact type diamonds. There had been finer contact designs driven by the need for higher carrier frequency reading with 4 ch (You all remember Quad, don't you?). But those designs were notorious for chewing up vinyl. The newer Shibata and line contact shapes increased the vertical contact zone to minimize the pressure effect. But there are a number here who like the older mod. ellipticals? Why? Because the sound is a little smoother, less edgy, silkier? Love to hear your thoughts on stylus shape.
Cheers, OldADC