+1 @dover
I have witnessed this owning many VPI unipivot arms from the basic aluminum JMW 10.5, the 10” 3D with Valhalla wire, and two 12” 3DR. They are actually decent tonearms, but in hindsight I would never recommend putting a $5K+ cartridge on it because the arms will not get the most out of what the cartridge can provide. It doesn’t mean that the cartridges wont sound good on the arm, but anyone who does so is wasting their investment a bit.
Case in point - I at first put a $9K My Sonic Lab Signature Gold cartridge on the 12” 3DR which was mounted on a Clearaudio Innovation Wood. It sounded good and was a notable upgrade to a slightly cheaper Air Tight PC-1s. But after the cartridge broke in, I upgraded the arm to a Tri-Planar U12. It was a night and day difference. The improvement in clarity and imaging, and the reduction in groove noise ans resonance made the sonics elevate multiple levels over any other cartridge upgrade I had before it.
The moral of the story is that VPI tables and tonearms are very good, especially doe what you might be able to get them for, but there are other worthwhile areas of investment beyond an incredible cartridge, that can reap even larger gains.