turntable mats: should I use one?

The Sota is certainly a better sounding table than my Thorens but they both incorporate spring suspension. I use a Herbies Way Excellent II mat for my TD 160 aluminum platter and I'm happy with the sonic improvement that its made.
Herbies makes a variety of mats dependent on the design of both the table and platter. I can't say that this would be the best mat for a Sota however there is a 90 day return policy and it's considerably cheaper than the Boston or any of the other carbon fiber mats.
I wish I had the Sota with a 9 inch Thomas Schick tonearm.

No way. Don´t waste your time & money on mats whatever they are. They change the sound, sometimes may improve it in some extent but not improve it as whole.
Buy a Reso-Mat instead. Vinyl sits on acetate spikes allowing resonances vanish into air and not bouching back from platter´s surface to cartridge smearing the original sound from your stylus. It just works. ;)

Harold...I just ordered the Resomat to add to my collection. I'd never heard of it before but cheers for the heads up m8 :)
I'll be comparing it to my existing (undamped) mat.
If I like it, it could become permanent. :)

The idea of parking the LP on a bed of nails is a wee bit unnerving but the only thing that concerns me is the proximity of my platter's label cutout. How close are those cones to the label area?

Been using Herbie's for years. Now I use the Moomat.

The inner cones are 0.5 cm from the label area. Actually all the cones are under the run-in & run-out areas.
The reduced size (for Technics SL-1200 etc.) has the outer cones under the outer groove area:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RESO-MAT-TURNTABLE-PLATTER-MAT-FOR-TECHNICS-SL1200-GARRARD-401-/181111989567?pt=UK_AudioTVElectronics_HomeAudioHiFi_Turntables&hash=