Not quite sure what or who you're referring to there, Shaun (the bit in bold). Hopefully it's no-one here, as no-one I know of falls into that category.
I fully understand and appreciate where you're coming from, but that shouldn't negate your desire always to learn and discover new things. So what if someone was to pop up to your place with, say, a heavily modded SL-1210, or perhaps Paul's Sony, and to your ears it beat your NA?
Just say that happened, for the sake of the discussion, what would be your opinion then on direct-drive T/Ts?
Marco.