Gimbal vs unipivot tonearms

I know VPI is now pushing gimbal arms, but they are WAY overpriced, and they are made on a 3D printer - I guess out or some kind of plastic, and I saw in a previous discussion that they actually bend sometimes during shipping if it gets hot, and they tell their customers to use a hair dryer to bend them back - I kid you not. They also say they'll replace them if you want. $4K to boot!

The unipivots that bounce around are definitely a PITA to use, set up, you name it. I hear they make nice tables though.....and they started out making bases for Denon tables.

In fairness to VPI, I think they long ago fixed the problem with warping of their 3-D tonearm due to heat. And the uniform 3-D structure is touted as an advantage, not a cheap shortcut as you imply.

Could be (I wonder what material can go through a printer not subject to heat), but $4K is quite expensive compared to other options. Bottom line - if unipivot was the future, they wouldn't be going in another completely different direction.

You would think that 3D printing would be less expensive as there is very little labor involved. I think the other physical properties of the material they are using would be most important such a density, stiffness, resonance properties, etc. Anything can be damaged by heat if you crank up the temp enough. At any rate using a gimbal set up is a step in the right direction even if it is a plain Jane design. Tri-Planar, Schroder , Reed and Kuzma have all come up with beautiful and novel bearing topography. 

Rega is IMHO best bang for the buck