Reasonable moving coil cartridge

Elliptical styli are in no way, shape or form limited to 600hrs. My AT33E has run for a minimum of 800hrs, more likely around 1000hrs and is still in good shape.

The reason many (but certainly not all) ellipticals wear out quite quickly is that they are destined for cheap cartridges and hence lower quality diamonds are used. And low quality diamonds do of course wear out sooner than good quality diamonds.....

However, an elliptical and a contact line made from the same quality diamond will see a far smaller difference in longevity.

The remainder of Chakster’s assertions are also utterly wrong. There is absolutely no need to accept a bonded stylus as substitute for one that is press fitted as long as you use a skilled re-tipper. There is also absolutely no reason to assume that a re-build or re-tip will take 3-5 months - my last one took less than 4 weeks. Just show a little sense and ask before sending in your cartridge. If the waiting list is long, choose somewhere else to send it.

Basically, Chakster’s proselytising should generally be taken with a large bag of coarse sea salt.

Audio-Technica AT-F7

It’s wrong. And a sample size of three is hardly consequential.

Only they can answer as to their preference, but a complete rebuild offers the re-whatever far more control of the quality of the finished product (and of course more money). A simple retip might quite conceivably fail or deteriorate within an unreasonable time frame if the cartridge is old, due to factors outside their control.

I'd suggest having a read over at The Korf Blog.  It's the only place I know of where measurements of (a few) tonearms and headshells can be found.
Anyway, there are a number of very good tonearms around today which feature removable headshells.  Ikeda, Thomas Schick and Reed to name the three which spring immediately to mind.  No doubt there are more.
I doubt that anyone today would consider the LP12 to be the best belt drive table available, while the Technics is likely still up there.  Not many new DDs
to be had these days though.

Why wouldn’t you buy an MC as long as you have an MC-capable phono stage already available? The Audio-Technica AT-F7 is every bit as competent as any MM in the same price range and better than most. The one advantage a similarly priced MM has is the exchangable stylus, but if that doesn’t particularly matter then for all intents and purposes it’s a matter of six of one, half a dozen of the other.

I agree that you have to spend closer to a thousand to get an MC which is unequivocally better than the best MMs, but that’s a totally different subject.