Graham Phantom Elite vs. AS Aquilar

Mijo would prefer the original AR XA tonearm over the EPA100, given his druthers. Because the former tonearm more closely adheres to the various tonearm engineering gospels and based on his now 40 years ago listening experiences that took place in a hifi store, of all bad places in which to form an opinion about audio equipment.

From my observation of a Tosca, it seemed to use an outrigger contraption, a metal peg that sticks out from the pivot point toward the spindle side.  That peg rides on a horizontal support strut set at a right angle to the peg, so as to keep the unipivot from rotating, at least to that one side.  I recall thinking that arrangement was not satisfying, given the cost factor of a Tosca.  The metal on metal contact would seem potentially to create noise AND drag on the horizontal travel of the arm wand. But perhaps my idea of what is going on is incorrect.

What do you like, if you don't like VTA towers?  Do you like the inexact and treacherous process of finding the right VTA, holding the tonearm precisely in that selected position for dear life, and then searching for the tiny and usually weakly binding set screw which needs to be tightened down with a tool that is usually just out of your reach?  I personally hate that and would not have any tonearm that still relies on that primitive method for setting VTA.  There are a few vintage Japanese tonearms that permit setting VTA by a rotating knob, positioned over top of the vertical bearing as opposed to a side mounted tower, that moves the pivot up or down and can be fixed once a correct VTA is achieved, like the Victor 80XX series and the Technics B500 (and maybe the 100), but after that the VTA tower is the best solution in my opinion.