"I don't want all the steppers and relays and reels clacking themselves harder than necessary."
Well if that thinking was true, put your game on low-tap.
Yea sure, that will make it live longer (no it won't duh.)
high tap doesn't beat steppers or score reels more. trust me, nothing you're going to do to your games is going to compare to what they've been thru in the first 5 years of their lives. they are living in retirement in your basement right now. Even on the highest of high tap, it's like they're on social security and getting up at 9am in the florida sunshine compared to what they got when new.
We have over 100 EM games at the Ann Arbor pinball museum. I would say easily 75 percent are on high tap. And have been for the time i've owned them (so 20+ years for some games.) And they get played A LOT. out of this time, NOT ONCE, not a single time, have we had to replace a coil stop or a plunger or anything. So they're not "kicking themselves to death", trust me. Now when they came in, coil stops and plungers were replaced. But in the 20 years since, nothing.
So PLEASE just stop this bullcrap that high tap is going to punish your game. We have actual live evidence that this is crap, opposed to dumb conjecture.