Halcro, I'll bite.
The answer is that YES the NVS is a ring holding the table, with that ring mounted on legs. It serves the purpose that what is commonly thought to be a 'plinth' also serves. In principal, if you think of your TT-81 and what the original Victor plinth was like, it was a rigid frame into which the motor was screwed. That plinth had legs/footers which stood on the ground. The motor hung out over the empty air - quite similar to the NVS.
I would suggest that the idea of a 'plinth' could be boiled down to whether it serves the purpose intended. As an architect, you would know the purpose of the original meaning. It should be a rigid mount for the thing above it.
The question is whether the plinth for TTs is sufficiently different in that it is at the same time a "base" (and in Japanese, the word is a Japanese version of the English word 'base', not 'plinth'), and a weight which loads the TT to absorb resonance, or to conduct it to the next level below.
In that sense, a 'plinthless TT' might mean something different for different people.