Who's done it besides me ?

Justmetoo, look at the bright side. You are certainly saving a lot of money.
There are too many variables at play for me to be able to explain your experience. As an example, if your speakers are on the bright side many MC cartridges will sound edgy. The real expensive ones will not. I currently have an Ortofon Windfeld Ti and it's construction is meticulous. There are very few cartridges that can better it's sound and they are painfully expensive. As for cartridges at the bottom end of their line I can not say. The Windfeld is currently the least expensive cartridge I own. Of course, it is just as easy to break the cantilever off an expensive cartridge as a cheap one and even more tragic. The Talisman is actually the best value in the Clearaudio line and a very fine sounding cartridge once it is broken in. Clearaudio cartridges start out too bright. This goes away in 50 hours or so. 
Tomstruck, are you going to send it back to clear audio? If you are please tell us how much it cost to repair it!

Chakster to each his own. Only MM cartridges have removable styli. I know of no MM cartridge including the Ortofon 2M Black that can approach the performance of a modern MC cartridge, or a wood bodied Grado. I have owned all of them, Shure, Pickering, several Stantons, Empire, ADC, Goldring and I'm probably missing a few. Why? Better materials science with magnets and cantilevers. Better techniques of mounting styli and better styli. Much smaller armatures with less wire and lower resistance (much stronger magnets) leading to  much less moving mass. Much tighter tolerances. I used to see new cartridges with cantilevers and styli pointed in odd directions although all the Stantons I had were right on which is why I had several of them. All the modern cartridges I have gotten have been right on and these include Grado, Clearaudio, Koetsu, Lyra and Ortofon.  You can buy any of these cartridges knowing they will be aligned perfectly. The level of quality far exceeds that of anything I saw in the old days. I have no reason to look back. 

The Stanton has an aluminum baseball bat for a cantilever. Bend it enough and it will tear. Boron is very strong but brittle. Go far enough and they just snap. They stick the cantilever out there so that there are no reflections off the body. Lyra does the same thing. Like a wood turning lathe you have to be very deliberate when you approach it as you are always close to disaster. 
I did snap the cantilever off a Grado. But, it was an old worn out cartridge. I was playing around with it under a microscope. I'm not having it retipped. If I do another Grado it will be an Aeon. 
Old MM cartridges can not compete with a modern MC cartridge or a Grado. I have never used a Soundsmith cartridge so I can't say for sure but I suspect them also.