This was a fun read. LOL Go Aurich! I totally understood what you meant. Aurich's point was that to attempt to prove MET isn't a Top 10 game because here's what the PAPA players are doing "Start Sparky...rinse repeat" is a weak attempt to make a terrible point.
Tournament players do not play for fun during tournaments, only points, and as Keefer pointed out, you're trying to make the safest shots in order to outscore the other 3 players. That's just a horrific litmus test for a machine's Fun Factor. So please, much like the guys who call MM a 'castle fest' after watching it in PAPA TV, never again use tournament players' strategies as an example of a game being more/less fun. It's completely irrelevant. Timing out modes, slow and sterile ball manipulation over and over again, pounding one particular shot only, etc. That's supposed to make a case for whether or not a machine is fun? C'mon... Good for you Aurich! Poor choice of words in your rebuttal, because of course all the PAPA players thoroughly know the ruleset and can probably remember how they'd play back when they used to have fun, but good for you standing up to the Gang Mentality!
MET is a special pinball machine. The flow of the layout, the varied scoring tiers and strategies, the new depth of the ruleset, the incredible lighting effects, the sounds, etc. The furious way in which made shots can flow during a great multiball stack into pure pinball euphoria is simply special, only something I've found on a handful of other machines. I have a varied collection and have almost exclusively chosen to play MET in 2014. It's actually surprising how addicting it is.
A sidenote. Does anyone else use the "Pool" callout during multiball (not just MET, but any multiball)? LOL Well MET is one of the best for it. We use it to call a pool-shot so the other players know you're purposefully cue-balling one ball into a shot using another. And MET is one of the best for this. I cue shots into Snake all the time, but of course it's just luck unless you call it! And if you call it, and it doesn't go then you look like a Dork. So there's the risk/reward. You feel like Bruce Elwin Ali Norris when you make a couple of called cue-shots in a row, though! For me, when I'm hitting it that smooth and precise on the fly (I'm not much of a ball-cradler during multis, normally) I feel like Kvothe lowering himself into the Heart of Stone (for the Kingkiller Chronicle fans out there). Zen.
Top 10 lists and rating systems get very political, of course, so who cares. I just know for the past few months since the update, MET has not only been the most machine played at my place, it's been damn near the only.