How to choose a cartridge?

No substitute for listening.   But I have to say I have bought all my carts 'blind'.

I love the mix of man-spraining with honesty, and I totally agree.
(so it brought quite the smile to my face)

But, alas, I am generally sequestered in the middle of a desert.

 I last upgraded from an AR Phono 2.  …

I upgraded from an AR PH2… which is likely about 30+ years old S/S MM stage.
It is not bad for what it is, and the upgrade is a better… just not like gates of heaven opening... better.

It is quite difficult to audition cartridges, particularly because they are in a system that is totally different from one's own.  I have a local dealer that will allow trusted customers to take home and try certain cartridges that are in the store, but that must be nerve-wracking for all concerned.  I think he even allowed someone to take home an ultra expensive Allaerte cartridge.  So, at best, one hears a cartridge or family of cartridges in familiar systems to get an idea about the sound; after that it is sort of a crap shoot and a matter of making other system adjustments to get the sound right.  

What is "right" might also depend on the music and one's mood.  The truly dedicated might actually swap cartridges or have multiple arms or tables.  I am not so dedicated to analogue, so I stick with one cartridge for a long time, even if I have two quite different sounding cartridges (Lyra Titan and Transfiguration Orpheus L). 

I think you have a very good analogue rig, so it certainly deserves a great cartridge.  At best I can only say I have heard, and liked cartridges from the following brands: Lyra, Dynavector, Audio Technica, Ortofon, Koetsu, Allaerte, and van den Hul.  

Know your tonearm mass to start.

Buy a few set up tools to help you dial in the cartridges. I cannot stress this enough. I've been doing his a while and am amazed by how much of a difference this makes with better cartridges.

Pick a any brand and compare carts within an affordable (to you) line.

Try the different stylus shapes: elliptical, microline, shibata etc.. Avoid conical unless it's the Denon 103.

Try to compare a couple of carts at a time to see what you like.

Enjoy the ride.

I started with Grado, then Ortofon, Denon and now playing with Audio Technica. I'm also just starting my ride.

@holmz  : " of all the measurements, channel separation is the one that likely has the most bearing on things. "

But you have to measures it  and today almost no single cartridge manufacturer gives ( as in the past ) a measures charts.

R.

I don't know if any particular measurement says anything about how a cartridge might sound, much less whether one will like that sound.  It might well be case, as some mastering engineers have said, that distortions and artifacts inherent to the making of records and extracting the information on records might be what attracts some people to record playing.  I suspect that this, at least in part true.

I once borrowed a table from a shop while mine was under repair.  I noticed that that this setup had a particularly expansive sound field that seems to envelope the room.  I had, at that time, a Yamaha DSP-1 processor that creates multichannel reverberant information to feed to side and back channel speakers.  One setting was essentially a Hafler circuit that extracts out of phase information from the two channels to feed to separate speakers.  When I engaged this circuit, I got a lot of out of phase information FROM A MONO RECORD (with my own table, I would get no signal when engaging this circuit when playing mono records).  The cartridge was not wired out of phase an there was enough in-phase information for there to be a proper center image and proper left and right instrument localization with stereo records.  The amount of out of phase information (i.e., distortion) was not enough to destroy stereo imaging and it may have actually been an enhancement, at least with some recordings.