Why According to some Turntable extremists Pitch Control and Direct Drive is Sacrilege?

13blm,  just to continue this conversation, I would point out that the bearing of a belt drive turntable is under a unique stress that does not pertain to direct drive and most idler drive turntables, in that there is a sideways force pulling on the spindle shaft. In theory this could cause uneven wear, and eventually result in a minute amount of wobble. Not to mention that this force in the horizontal plane can also add noise. I am bringing this up for fun debate purposes only, not to get your goat.

My goat is hard to get, but shows up occasionally. 
The forces in well designed  oil and air bearings essentially  prevent what you described  above. There is no contact, or wear or "tilting", generally. my bigger point is bearing design accounts for much of the sound of a turntable especially  in dynamics. Low friction bearings make low torque motors look huge, extra torque just adds noise and cogging  
Regards 
Bruce
Anvil Turntables 
( Btw, I have my company  idled right now so have nothing to sell)

In belt drive, fast spinning motor has vibration, rubber belt has compliance, and plus to it friction of a needle on vinyl in not a constant.
You can get an ideal belt drive only in laboratory conditions.
I like idler and good DD, but I hate belt drive like many other modern Hi-End delusions like:
low sensitive box speakers, bright tweeters, 1KW transistor amplifiers, $10K cables ...

Wow, you are quite misinformed.   Belt drives use low hundreds rpm motors, idlers use motors in the 1500-2k rpm range. Threads dont stretch like rubber belts and stylus friction is true of all turntables.   Idlers and dd have plenty of issues and nothing is perfect .

My experience shows opposite.
I have used Nottingham Analog Spacedeck with Spacearm for 8 year, 
when I compared it to my friend's Lenco L75 (with a simple RB250 arm).
We played classical piano music, and I was shocked how much Lenco was more precise in rhythm reproduction. 
Piano playing had a sense and message with Lenco and it was like a set of unconnected sounds with Nottingham.
After that I bought raw Lenco L78. I added a heavy plywood plinth and vintage SME 3009 tonearm. 
I got much better PRAT, bass details, tone (especially on piano and organ), separation of instruments on complex music and musicality.
In term of dynamic Lenco and Nottingham where similar.
Nottingham wasn't a bad turntable but I clearly preferred Lenco.