Is the Manley Steelhead still relevant?

Time and time again, my rig amazes me and since I have a Steelhead, I know it is relevant and one of the reasons I get such good sound. Last night I forgot I had the original RCA pressing of Mingus' Tijuana Moods that I "inherited" (he is still alive thank goodness) from my father. Some of you may already know that the record was recorded in '57 but not released until '62. The sound was just so incredibly gorgeous and clear, making me once again think that Fremer is wrong when he talks about modern vinyl pellets being superior, modern pressing being superior, etc. 

I've owned mine for five years and I love it. Each time I have improved some aspect of my turntables I have discovered just how good the Steelhead is. Changing from VPI decks to hot-rodded NOS vintage decks with Reed 3P arms. Ven den Hul Crimson Colibri. Brian Walsh doing his thing. 
The Manley Steelhead will not hold you back. I don't claim nothing beats it for the price, but I do claim it would be next to impossible to think of it as a limiter/bottleneck. 
Btw, many claim to have had hum problems due to the Steelhead and imho they are wrong. Once I jettisoned my two VPI arms, my hum problems went away. De nada. Zilch. Bupkis. 
I don't doubt Mikey for a second insisting that for his system, newer more elaborate designs beat it. But my system is pretty "up there", just not Mikey level. 

the gain added by a formal line stage is completely superfluous.

What Lewm is referring to is the standard set by the industry back in the early 80's of 2V RMS for most source components. At the time, turntables were all but extinct. 
I disagree that a preamplifier is "superfluous". The better word would be, at best, "optional". 2V RMS is plenty for virtually every amplifier in terms of making full use of the amplifier's power. But for starters, what does that have to do with such features as input selection, balance, mute, phase inversion, etc? 
But more importantly, a great preamplifier does other things-it creates a sense of drive, propulsion, dynamics, and even space that is absent using a passive volume control at unity gain. Read any of John Atkinson's reviews of top tier preamplifiers over the last five years and he makes note of how he has come around to this realization after once thinking that a passive volume control offered a "purer signal".