Advice and recommendations needed for a turntable rig...

Don't let the vinyl naysayers affect your decision!  Yes, it needs patience and room (to store records) but the rewards are worth it to many. I use both digital (CDs and internet radio)l and analog media and while digital is certainly convenient, it does not (for me) compare to analog. I find records to be much more sonically satisfying, plus album art work can be beautiful and the liner notes most informative.  Also, try getting an artist to sign a digital download. Will you sign my thumb drive? ; ) In addition, artists are getting totally ripped off on digital downloads... literally fractions of a penny on the dollar! Buying physical media helps them make more $ per record.

Also, @bigtwin, who are you to tell someone how to spend their money without knowing anything about them?

@2psyop 

Although there are lots of available options, I think yours are solid picks - reflecting solid research and careful thought.  You're gonna love it.  

'Mass Loading' Is this a term you can expend on, as Heavy TT can be produced by including a wide range of singular materials or an even wider range of differing materials in the construction ? 

Do note 'Mass' needs good Support and a Wall Shelve is usually one method that can be discounted if the Wall Structure is questionable for the purpose.

$3.5K will be a substantial allocation on monies to get on board with Vinyl, if you are not needing to build a Vinyl Collection from 'all analogue production' of LP's.

Digital / Analogue Hybrid produced LP's will not be cheap but more affordable than an all analogue version.

Used LP purchases will have a mixed bag of opinions, and cleaning the LP will become a Buzz Word Topic, if one does buy used it will be their cheapest route into 'all analogue production' LP's. 

The LP is the Source, everything else to be achieved is attempts to have a optimised data extraction and optimised energy transfer for creating the signal to be sent Upstream in the signal paths circuitry.