Best value? By what measure? By paying double or triple of the cost per game, for often unfinished "hope and pray it gets better" code, then still having to fix a bunch of stuff yourself?

If a person is stupid enough to drop $4K on a completely blown out whitewater, then that is their fault. But paying ~3-4K for a used but fixed up Whitewater seems like a much better value than say Avengers at this point.

IF you are in the camp where you are running out of space faster than you are running out of money (like many, possibly most pinheands) then it simply comes down to what game you like better. Value becomes irrelevant.

I have never really shopped out (stripped playfield, cleaned everything) the Earthaker I purchased more than 10 years as my first pin. I am a bad, bad boy. I have tuned it up, replaced most (doh!) of the rubbers, and fixed a few things as needed. But it still has a decent amount of legit route grime