The urge to tinker is awash. What TT might better mine and why?

You ask why.

I suggest that it depends on your taste. If you can’t stand wow and flutter, get a direct drive. They tend to control that very well. Personally, I don’t find wow and flutter nearly as offensive as tizzy digital-type sound.

If you can’t stand tizzy, try a premium belt drive. I suspect that tizzy comes from higher frequency speed variations, which can be audible if you listen carefully. The thrust bearing on a DD can be a noise generator - yes, even the best. At a recent trade event, the big new Technics was being demo-ed. They had a motor assembly on display, so I picked it up and turned the spindle. I could hear the bearing (teflon PTFE variant) - not loud, but it was there.

And compared to my NA and my air bearing, to me the sound (of music) was tizzy. Just like my Technics SL150(2) - set up with an air bearing tonearm, so that I could swap out wands and cartridges in known-perfect alignment, for comparison with my other tables in my own system.

Now try turning the spindle of a NA Dais bearing. Silence. Try that with an air bearing. Silence. I conclude that bearing noise is the source of tizzy, solving the mystery (to me) of why I didn’t like DD - and why, incidentally, one needs a bearing which is silent both axially and radially.

If you have perfect pitch and can’t abide even a hint of wow, get a CD player instead.

Why is direct drive incompatible with an air bearing? Are you aware of a few of the vintage direct drive turntables that use magnetic levitation so that the vertical bearing is not doing much weight bearing.?

It's not incompatible, IMO, but I've never seen it done. I'd like to. Bear in mind that there are two sources of friction and noise: thrust, which is obvious, and radial to stabilize the platter. Even some air bearing turntables don't bother with radial, and the challenges of going contactless with DD, with any economy at all, seem daunting.

I have heard of the partial maglev technology, and even thought of using it in my DIY, but it's still a case by case thing, the devil being in the details. I've never heard of maglev used radially - sounds impossible to me. So we are left with two surfaces in contact, therefore a potential for noise, and I think that plastic bearings tend to produce noise.

Bottom line to me is whether there is bearing noise and whether it is imparted to the platter. I think that any bearing noise is transmitted, and hypothesize that it's the source of tizzy digital type sound. What are your views of the results of a bearing noise which is audible?

The Denon showed up this morning and have it spinning tunes right now.
Nothing much to dislike about it apart from I feel the dl103d cart is not the best choice but hey that is what it came with.
It is definitely brighter with less bass than my NA rig but that could be as much the cart.
Next move will be deciding on a good suitable mm cart... Or two ... Lol.

I would audition a suspended deck. If you like the characteristics a used Oracle Alexandria might be budget friendly. If you can find MK III or MK IV, they are more reliable and easier to set up; but hard to find. You can add your choice of tonearm, but there are some weight restrictions with all suspendeds. Of course if your budget allows, the Delphi is well worth a listen.

Of course, you could go Thorens or Linn, if you don’t mind being one of a pack.  ;^)