Why According to some Turntable extremists Pitch Control and Direct Drive is Sacrilege?

Michael Fremer has written, and I agree:

"Regulating a direct-drive motor's speed with a phase-locked loop produces tight speed control and measurably low levels of wow and flutter, but the motor's constant, ultra-high-speed hunting and pecking as it over- and undercompensates in the attempt to produce a consistent speed can create a jitter effect in the mid-treble to which the human ear is particularly sensitive, adding a hard, brittle texture to music. That describes the sound of Technics' now-discontinued SL1200 series of direct-drive turntables, and explains why, despite their high build quality and relatively low price, few are used in serious audio systems, though some listeners claim that these 'tables can be modified to improve their sonic performance."

That doesn't mean that DD cannot be built that doesn't have this issue.  It has been done for generations, but they have usually been quite expensive.  As the prices of high performing belt drive TTs has gone up and that of high performing DD TTs has come down (as for ex. VPI) the market is changing.

@lewm wrote:

" I would point out that the modern trend in the most advanced belt-drive designs is to have an outboard motor controller. A subset of those devices incorporate a feedback mechanism that transmits platter speed errors back to the controller which then sends a message to the motor to correct the error. In addition, we have the recent outboard devices, like the Phoenix Engineering pieces, that set up a feedback mechanism for platter speed control and can be added to even older belt-driven or idler-drive turntables to improve speed stability. So, it hardly seems logical to disparage direct-drive turntables for incorporating a quartz-locked feedback mechanism that makes speed corrections. (Does Fremer realize this?)"

I’m afraid you don’t really know what your’e writing about. The Eagle-Roadrunner combo, which I use, takes a measure of speed, and therefore corrections to a 20 pound platter, about once every three revolutions. It takes several more revolutions for the correction(s) to have full effect.  A very smooth process.  This is very different than the continuous and instantaneous micro corrections made to a relatively light DD platter. As I wrote above, it is possible to design even a direct drive with corrections to avoid the the discernible micro corrections and sound good; it has been done for generations. And yes, Fremer realizes this!

And it is also very possible that some people cannot hear the differences. It happens all the time in audio.