Is my anti-skating too strong.

Horizontal effective mass is 25-35 gm and vertical is 7 gm. A normal pivoted arm might be 12 gm vertical and 13 gm horizontal. 20 gms is much to wide a divergence.

You miss the point I made earlier - the effect of splitting the horizontal and vertical effective mass is an advantage - vastly reduces the fundamental peak resonance in amplitude. In a conventional arm the vertical/horizontal resonance are the same and the peak amplitude from the fundamental resonance is cumulative.  By splitting the horizontal and vertical effective masses you have 2 fundamental resonance peak amplitudes that are not cumulative becuase they occur at different frequencies. Whilst the fundamental resonance may be out of the audioband for most systems, If you look at the Shure white papers, the fundamental resonance can be devastating to accurate tracking and distortion and has significant artifacts within the audio band. 

Tracking error is not near as much of a problem as it is made out to be not that minimizing it is not a good thing.

Really - check out how many folk have offset/bent cantilevers within a short period of time - its well north of 50%.

So, the discussion has come around to the idea that high effective mass in the horizontal plane, relative to vertical effective mass, is at least theoretically a good idea.  How does one know that 25g is too high?  What is the typical horizontal compliance of most cartridges?  While reading the preceding posts, I remembered that some pivoted tonearms place outboard weights right at the pivot point, extending out on either side at a 90 degree angle to the arm wand.  These weights are added in order to increase horizontal effective mass, and I have read at least one thread, a few years ago, wherein the benefits were said to be evident.  M Fremer has popularized the idea that horizontal mass should not be so high, for what that is worth. It seems logical to me that when the stylus is trying to trace the heavy horizontal modulations of a bass response, you want the stylus/cantilever to move whilst the arm stays as still as possible. 

lewm,

You are describing the Moerch anisotropic arm I described above.  I think the model is the DP8 or DP9.  

I have no idea if 25 gms is too high, I just know it is WAY higher than is common with conventional arms.  In the past, some users of air bearing arms reported snapping the cantilevers on their cartridges (Walker owners, I believe), but, who knows whether there is some other cause for such problems (its not like user error is a rare phenomenon).

@lewm
I’m not an advocate either way, I always base my views on specific cartridge/arm combinations that I have experienced, not speculation..

However, regarding high horizontal effective mass, the most interesting experience I have had is that my Shure V15vxmr & Shure V15vmr sound superb in both the Dynavector and the ET2, despite their high horizontal effective mass and high compliance. This is counterintuitive.

As stated above I left the Shure V15vmr on the ET2 for 10 years, stabiliser brush removed, and the cantilever was still dead straight after all that time. I actually sold the Shure for more than I paid for it, and the purchaser viewed the 10 year old stylus through a mircoscope and was very happy with it - dead straight and little wear..

Split Resonance - there are several arms that do this is various ways
Eminent Technology, Dynavector, Moersch we have discussed.

Other examples are Helius & Vertere where the effective length is different in the horizontal and vertical plains.

Bruce Thigpen, who majored in physics, audio engineering & air bearing design argues that splitting the fundamental resonance results in more accurate phase response across the spectrum. Geoffrey Owen of Helius subsrcibes to this view as well. Dynavectors argument is based on bass accuracy, providing a more stable platform for the bass notes as cut into the groove.

Regarding snapped cantilevers and linear tracking arms - Kuzma & Walker have far far higher effective mass than the ET2. Those arms I think are too heavy. Mechanical trackers are not great on cartridges either. 

@larryi , high horizontal effective mass does not mean the cartridge does not move. It means it resonates at a lower frequency. The penalty for that is the same as it is for any pivoted arm and remember on the other side of this equation you have the much lighter vertical effective mass which is going to do exactly the opposite in the vertical direction destroying the bass and even causing feedback under certain circumstances. You can not separate the two. You are caught between a rock and a hard place.
@lewm , and that is the problem with the argument with a high effective mass being "OK"  On top of that the slow oscillation of the cantilever at the resonance point is going to place the cantilever in a less linear point in it's travel increasing distortion and tracking problems. The market usually figures things out. No air bearing arm has ever gained traction in the market and I do not think it is because of the complexity of having a compressor. The Clearaudio straight line trackers are lighter but still cursed by the same problem on top of hygiene issues and people in general do not care for them. No compressor.
I also object to your coloring this as my "ideology." It is not my ideology any more than the sun rising in the east. You can hypothesize that this issue does not cause a sonic problem but the issue exists. 
Finally, IMHO a good pivoted tonearm is going to function and sound better. If tangential tracking is your thing check out the Reed 5T and the Schroder LT. The Schroder in particular is genius. It accomplishes the goal of tangential tracking while maintaining similar vertical and horizontal effective mass and avoids the use of motors and compressors.