The Importance of Anti-skate, Do decks without it skew left? Options

[Knowzy]

In our last conversation, we came up with three increasingly strignent criterium for selecting a decent USB turntable:

1. Ceramic cartridge never!
2. Anti-skate
3. Direct drive (remember, these are sub-$1,000 turntables)

I'm having particular trouble explaining the anti-skate requirement.

Here's what I'm hoping HA can answer:

• Do turntables without anti-skate, such as the Audio-Technica LP2D-USB, truly have no compensation and ride the inner groove like a surfer catching a wave?
• Someone at the Vinyl Engine suggested that the weight of the "high mass" tonearms found on such TT's essentially force the stylus into the middle of the groove. Thoughts on this?

I need some compelling reasons to choose a deck with anti-skate, especially for people who don't plan on replacing the cart.

There's already a good reason to choose a TT without anti-skate: Newbies don't need to learn how to balance their tonearm.

Thanks!

[Knowzy]

Mind you, if you're publishing a widely read article, the problem is that whatever you says is great will shoot up in price on eBay. When everyone has forgotten your article, the price will plummet again!

While we're on the subject, here are the analog TT's I'm considering making outrageously expensive on eBay.

The critera:

• Less than 0.12% wow and flutter (which is the best in the USB turntable world- Pro-ject Debut).
• Consumer friendly- i.e. no moving belt to adjust speed, dial anti-skate (no thread and weight), perhaps some automatic features
• No obvious design flaws
• Under $1,000

The results:

• Technics SL-1200 series (obvious)
• Thorens 240G
• Denon DP-500M

Are there other makes/models I should be considering?