Vintage DD turntables. Are we living dangerously?

As far as the sound difference between the TT81 and the TT101 I would have to say it is more of a feeling difference, I am more relaxed with the 101 - no gritting my teeth or other tensions. The feeling is that the music flows better and is more easily pulled into me. Words fail me.

Aigenga, I think what you wrote could also be termed an increase in "fluidity". In any case, what you wrote would be another fair description of what I hear with the L07D as compared to other DD turntables I have owned which use motors with iron or steel cores. (Jury is still out on a comparison of L07D to Technics SP10 Mk3, however. Mk3 has fantastic "liveliness", for sure.) However, let me caution that this is the type of deductive reasoning one should really avoid (relating the L07D's fluid sound to the lack of cogging of its coreless motor), even though I am guilty of it here. The one observation is not necessarily related to the other factoid.

Aigenga,
I'm currently using the excellent Victor rubber mat which comes with the TT-101 (note that this is slightly different to the one which comes with the TT-81).
I find that these 'ringing' platters cry out for the damping abilities of these mats as I believe Victor also realised and perfected?
On top of this I place the suede (pigskin) mat made by Victor especially for these tables. These are available form Tommy at TopClass for $130.
I tried the Millenium carbon fibre mat directly on the aluminium platter which was not as good and also tried it on top of the rubber mat which was not bad....but the above combination I settled on works well for me at the moment.
I'm tempted to try the heavy 1Kg+ gunmetal Micro Seiki mats but the costs ($1000-$2000) make it too risky for me?
Oh and please don't spend any money on an outer ring unless you use it with an undamped metal platter.
Here is a thread precisely about my findings on these
OUTER RING

Doesn't it seem odd....if a coreless DC motor produces no cogging and sounds so 'fluid', relaxed and unfazed.....that a manufacturer would be foolish to even contemplate an alternative design?
I mean is the price difference between the two types hundreds of dollars?
I wouldn't imagine so?

Henry, On that last post, one would have to peer into the brain of a Victor engineer to find out why all Victor tts were not equipped with coreless motors. The motor in the TT101 is not only coreless vs the TT81, it also has considerably higher torque, I believe. Those two characteristics definitely would add to the cost of producing the motors, for sure. It is more costly to make a high-torque coreless motor than a cored motor of similar torque characteristics. Also, coreless motors are more prone to overheating under stress, so that had to be considered in their design. And finally, what was the actual price difference between TT81 and TT101?

I know for Kenwood, their KD500 (I think that's the model), which was one very giant step down from the L07D in all other ways, nevertheless also came with a coreless motor. Pioneer used coreless motors in their Exclusive line of tt's; do the upper end of the Pioneer line tt's also have coreless motors? Don't know. Technics seems not to have used coreless motors at all, but as you pointed out, their best motors have 24 poles and the DC power supply could further reduce cogging to a non-issue. Motors and their power supplies are an art form unto themselves.