Transport Science and Philosophy: VRDS et al

My curiosity about their engineering has led me to do some research on the mechanisms used in various types of transports. Many people seem to agree that the top'o'the'line transport mechanism is the Teac/Esoteric VRDS device used in many high-end transports -- Teac, Esoteric, Wadia, Spectral -- and the engineering of this device is interesting. Comments about the VRDS state that it extracts more information from a disc than any other type of transport mechanism. However, a few people have indicated that this leads to a highly detailed, somewhat dry sound. This depends partly on what DAC is paired with the VRDS transport, and perhaps a tube-based, musical DAC pairing takes advantage of the benefits of both component philosophies. What are your thoughts on this?

Many people have also commented that high-quality digital playback is less dependant on the transport than on the DAC. A lot of people seem to pair cheaper transports -- Sony, Pioneer, etc -- with high-end DACs with good results. Therefore, what improvements over these less expensive transports do higher-end transports such as the VRDS offer and IYO are they worthwhile?

Besides the VRDS, what other transport mechanisms do you like?

[I posted this same question on Audio Asylum. Pardon the duplication if you noticed it, but I seem to get different types of answers from each place.]