Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms?

This may sound calvinistic and like cold german technical view to some

No way out?

Audiophile survival guide

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..... No

Atmasphere wrote a very good - and true - comment. That's the way it is.
When you compare those Arms on a table which can hold several Arms and you use a demanding music with a lot of dynamic swings - like the old Deccas, no reissues - you will discover very fast what linear tracking Arms CAN'T do, they are not able to reproduce a Physical Force which is in the recording (has nothing to do with volume).
The silence in the grooves based on that kind of tracking is true, but this is only 1 parameter.
Anyway, it is not necessary to split hairs, today we have pivot Designs which are not outstanding and a linear tracker beat them. The difference is pretty simple, you design a working pivot, the Designer has to think and has to solve some problems, otherwise it won't work properly.
Regular Arms can be hyped much easier, they can be made chap and can be fitted with a generous mark up.
But back to the question:

Are linear tracking arms better than pivoted arms

the answer is: No

Remembers me to the day from my good old times when I was asked after listening to the Goldmund Reference with the T3F Arm which Cartridge I would mount in that Arm? Goldfinger, UNIverse, Olympos or even something more expensive????
My answer was "Go for the cheapest one or to that one you hate most".
I saw the movements from that Arm and the smeared soundstage was one of the results.
But honestly, I guess, that was not the answer the other one wanted to hear :-)

Sometimes I feel sad, when I read some posts that there are a few who are not satisfied with some expensive units. So much work from the Designers to sky the latest NASA secrets, the steal some dust from the moon from them to make better sounding bearings, all those friendly journalists who have only ONE goal, to help in the endless search of the best...
and then: We read something no one really wants to know, ok, maybe via private mail, but please, not in public discussions.
When I had my Airline/Triplanar/Davinci/Graham and-some-more I loved the click of the starting compressor, the first move from the Arm to remove the dust, the starting of sound when my cartridge touched the first groove.
I loved it, the respect I got from visiting audiophiles, here they saw, that I am a serious Audiophile. Great time.
After a while I discovered late in the evening that the most used Arm was not that one which worked with air. I asked myself, what happened?
Had it to do something with sound?
I am still on the way to find my answer :-)

..or Garrard idler, or a 30-40 year old direct drive EMT, Technics, Sony or Pioneer....with a modern arm, improved plinth, and LOMC cartridge can compete on the highest level of tt performance..

Sounds for an upgrade for electronics which can show the difference.

My tonearm fantasy

How about the Reality....

No audio product has ever succeeded because it was better, only because it was cheaper, smaller, or easier to use.

High End Audio Industry has lost its way, there's no hope now. Audio actually used to have a goal: perfect reproduction of the sound of real music performed in a real space. That was found difficult to achieve, and it was abandoned when most music lovers, who almost never heard anything except amplified music anyway, forgot what "the real thing" had sounded like. Today, "good" sound is whatever one likes. Fidelity is irrelevant to music.
Since the only measure of sound quality is that the listener likes it, that has pretty well put an end to audio advancement, because different people rarely agree about sound quality.