“ I was told that to make a Rega perform, you have to add a lot of tweaks...”
That is simply untrue. The Regas I’ve had sounded great out of the box. True, certain tweaks may have enhanced performance, but this can be true of many tables.
From your post, it seems your experience with Regas was quite minimal. You had a few things go wrong and gave up citing “cheap parts, poor access, and substandard performance.”
My annoyance with your original post has little to do with the fact that you can’t stand Regas. You’re free to choose whatever table makes you happy. It’s the fact that you seem to go out of your way to denigrate them, leaving quite a few annoyed Rega owners in your wake. And after portraying Regas in the most derogatory terms, you kindly add “YMMV.” Thanks for that.
And, by the way, you’re not quite as funny as you used to be in your criticism. I found this quote of yours from The Vinyl Asylum:
“A rega arm does an excellent job roasting marshmellows. They slide right off the headshell. No other arm performs that well roasting marshmellows. Other arms are better relegated to the mundane task of helping to reproduce music, a characteristic mostly lacking from Rega products. “
That, I have to admit, was pretty funny. But you may want to learn the correct spelling of marshmAllows before your next helpful ROASTING about Regas.