Dentdog, There is no need to be apologetic regarding your affection for the Resomat. You have lots of respectable company in that regard. Like I may have written elsewhere, if not here, I am curious to try one myself. In the past year, I had an epiphany in the opposite direction. Since the mat (of any kind) sits in contact with the platter, more or less in the case of the Resomat, I don't think this directly pertains to the arm pod discussion. I was long an enemy of record weights and the like devices, believing that they "killed" the dynamic extremes of music, in parallel with your experience using other platter mats. Then I acquired an original record weight and peripheral ring made by Kenwood for the L07D, just to have them, since I own an L07D. By chance I have found that the L07D record weight used in conjunction with a Boston Audio Mat1 or Mat2 or the stainless steel mat on the L07D sounds much better, even more "lively", than the mats without the record weight. I don't believe for a minute that there is any magic in the L07D record weight, by the way; the experience merely suggests that my earlier suppositions were incorrect. Probably any good weight of similar mass would work as well. It's a weird hobby.
By the way, I also think that maglev of the platter mostly acts to relieve pressure on the bearing and possibly contribute to a lower rumble figure, but I don't think it does much to isolate the platter, at least not in a major way. So, your findings there do not add or subtract from the debate about arm pods.
I do take your point about the Terminator tonearm; because they are riding on a cushion of air that would seem to isolate the arm itself from the underlying structure, the Terminator and other air bearing tonearms could be said to mimic the effect of an outboard arm pod, albeit I do believe from what you wrote that the understructure of the Terminator is directly bolted to the plinth. In which case the coupling or lack thereof would be a function of the air pressure and other aspects of the interface between the moving arm wand and its carriage.
By the way, I also think that maglev of the platter mostly acts to relieve pressure on the bearing and possibly contribute to a lower rumble figure, but I don't think it does much to isolate the platter, at least not in a major way. So, your findings there do not add or subtract from the debate about arm pods.
I do take your point about the Terminator tonearm; because they are riding on a cushion of air that would seem to isolate the arm itself from the underlying structure, the Terminator and other air bearing tonearms could be said to mimic the effect of an outboard arm pod, albeit I do believe from what you wrote that the understructure of the Terminator is directly bolted to the plinth. In which case the coupling or lack thereof would be a function of the air pressure and other aspects of the interface between the moving arm wand and its carriage.