I agree. In just the few short months of becoming a tablehead, playing with a million permutations and changes to my audio setup along with listening to four different tables, the only conclusion that I've come to with certainty is that they all sound different depending on what else is in the chain. Could be the cart, could be the mat, could be the tonearm cable, could be the ampp, the pre-amp, on and on. I've done so many comparisons and reconfigurations that at some point or other all the tables sounded awesome.
Barring distinct, audible 'flaws' like wow and flutter, and obvious cheap low-buck fare it's hard for me to imagine making easy claims that such and such table is
clearly better than such and such. There just seem to be too many variables.
Maybe it's like love, when it comes to finding the right tt: Sometimes it's at first sight, sometimes you never realize what you had 'til its gone, sometimes you just have to work at it to make it work.