What direction is VPI headed?

Their products are very favorably marketed. ,.......

jollytinker, Did you ever read or get a reminder from VPI that they have a (set) , cartridge alignment configuration? Not one time in my experience did Micheal Fremer or any one else remark on this issue. A total industry failure! Yet, we are left with the product that was marketed as such. WOW?

Give me a break!

 So even Bill Stevenson remarked about this recently. He had an issue as a  VPI owner and said that VPI offered a fix his TT. What about the rest of us?

What do I want? Well, I want a 40 year old company who advertises itself as "made in the USA" to act like it!

Why am I having to explain this?!  WOW!!

@tooblue  you're absolutely right - there was no VPI bashing in your original post and in most of the responses.  I'm responding to a general theme that crops up in threads here on A'gon, which I think is unfair. But I should have clarified that I'm referring to posts that are not actually in this thread, so Mea Culpa!  That said, I can't agree with you @slaw about this alleged "total industry failure." I've had great experiences with VPI and been very well treated by them, but I also don't expect too much hand-holding.  It's a company built by tinkerers, and their products have a certain amount of play built in. You might be pro-antiskate or not. you might prefer one cartridge geometry or another. They all require some kind of trade off, and that's just the nature of the technology.  If you want super simplicity then maybe a VPI turntable is not the best choice - there are plenty of other excellent companies and formats to choose from!  

VPIs decision to limit customers to one tonearm choice (theirs) by eliminating the armboard, starting with the HRX HotRod, is understandable from a marketing standpoint, yet probably precludes their newer tables from consideration by many, including me.

Dave

Inna is basing this on the astonishing rise in the popularity of Vinyl and the associated gear used to play this stuff…makes perfect sense.

Also, 3 local-ish audio "salons" I've visited over the last several months carry a Pro-Ject "The Classic" TT I've wondered about since it came out to pretty good reviews last year. The shop in New Hampshire said the only table that suited me is a new VPI Scout though the amoeba style base looked too weird  (I own a great sounding Linn Basik/Akito that I'm afraid will die before I replace it…but I'm not in a hurry), another was certain a Rega/Feikert/Hana rig was the one for me, and a third shop has had a "Classic" for months and nobody has listened to it. Lame…the Pro-ject is around a grand, the ones suggested to me are all around 2 grand, and they wonder why people shop online.

Consumers are a fickle bunch that can quickly turn , made in the USA or not. Creating exclusivity such as is alluded to above in a shrinking market , and the constant reworking and naming of virtually the same product, in an already tighter consumer spending era could possibly finally bite them in the arse.
Not a knock on the product itself, many like them and the made in the USA mantra , but IMHO, not having other real competition in the same market nationally has made the innovation and design of their tables lazy and marketing over pushed ahead of the previous.
I get that people want to buy something from a company they feel will be around longer, but, it still doesn't change the reality a lack of competition and the fear the Old business supporters portray of any other outside the country options. Doesn't make either products bad or better, it just has a tendency to repackage the same old over and over .  I'm not a fan of VPI personally, but that's a choice made based on the playback, I prefer, not the product so much itself. Any entity  that continues to build and promote products for the use of vinyl is good in my book.  
Someone predicted the demise, which if anything will kill it, its pricing has become idiotic for both new and the absurd prices people put on tired out of shape tables of yesteryear. Some of which certainly are a measure of respectable , but in reality are far from  worth the original price let alone 5 to 10 times it some 40 years onward .