I think the Thorens or the Rega with the best cartridge you can afford is the way to go. Saving $2400 on the Thorens adds that much to the cartridge kitty. If you can get into something like the Ortofon Windfeld Ti or the Lyra Kleos you would be living high off the hog.
As for your dream Turntable the suspended Motus or SME are handily better than the others. The Sota Cosmos Vacuum outperforms all of them. It has a magnetic thrust bearing, a state of the art drive system, a proper suspension, vacuum clamping and a really great dust cover that can and should be used during play. If you want fancy looking the Basis Inspiration is the way to go. It will cost you three times as much as the Sota for very similar performance. David Fletcher and AJ Conte were big friends. They were both engineers who loved audio.