If you have an original and a remake side-by-side, will they feel different? YES

But...

If you have an original and another original side-by-side they will feel different too.

The build quality on the remakes is excellent, they play so close to an original as to not matter.

Furthermore, did anyone really expect that a brand new out of the box machine would play exactly the same as a 25 year old machine?

The remakes are done extremely well. You won't be disappointed with either a remake or a (well-cared for) original.

I don't know where you are getting this from, especially since you don't own a remake.

The only time I have felt any flipper fade was near the end of my best Monster Bash game (over 3 billion) which took over an hour (and it might have really been ME that was fading). My "original" WhiteWater machine can get some fade on very long games too.

And as for the flippers being weak, that's just silly. I've had to turn down the flipper power on my MBr just to keep the balls from flying off the ramp shots.
If there is a complaint to be made about the remake flippers, it's that they are too strong...not too weak.

In my opinion, most of the people who complain about the remakes either haven't really spent any time with them, or are just pissed that they have brought down the prices of their originals.

Then you will NOT be disappointed by a remake. Of course, the best thing to do would be to find someone who has a remake and put a few games on it to see for yourself.

Will it play exactly the same as the "one you remember"...probably not. But then, my Eight Ball Deluxe does not play the same as my brother's Eight Ball Deluxe either, and they are both obviously originals.

Is that any different than any other "modern" machine (i.e. a current Stern)?

The remakes are "modern" versions of the original layouts, with all the pluses and minuses that come with that...

And for those that say the RGB lighting is "bad/ugly/annoying", you can set them to be a single color (i.e. white), if that's what you want.

How is it different? I admit that I am no expert on Sterns, but I hear lots of complaining about how node boards fail and can't be fixed.

As to "looking under playfields", I've owned my WhiteWater since 1996 and my EBD since 1984 - and I can assure you I've had to do lots of "looking".

You don't keep an EBD running for 38 years without knowing the underside of its playfield very well.

Well, if that's your idea of an insult, better stay away from New Jersey....

I agree that the one big board could have been split into 2 or 3 boards, but then you are adding more connectors (and connectors can be a big failure point too). Like I said above, there are pluses and minuses either way.

Interestingly, I posted about this a while ago. This same issue has happened to me twice.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/led-out-on-mbr

Furthermore, I saw a MBr on location that had the same problem. Always the bottom LED also.

Fortunately, replacing that little PCB is a pretty easy task. It's the only real problem I've had with my MBr (other than some minor adjustments).

I can't claim to be a Stern expert, but isn't the reason they do this is because they don't have a specific "hold" circuit like B/W (and remakes) flippers have?