The METEOR targets should reset to the same state as the end of the previous ball for any given player.

My old Meteor had this issue initially but it was purely mechanical. The little coils were firing to drop the targets properly but the target would stay up or partially up. Had to tear apart the drop mechanism and clean/repair/replace/tweak/bend/twist all the intricacies and springs to get it to work 100%. Note you have to reinstall the mechanism and test it at the angle of the game to be sure it works well - testing it in hand or on a bench isn't indicative of successfully fixing them.

Before that though, watch the coils through test mode and make sure all 6 letters drop in sequence. If they do work properly in test mode, you might have some sort of switch issue where the game isn't actually detecting what targets are actually down at the end of a ball.

Agreed.

The majority of drop target problems I've encountered are mechanical related due to wear, corrosion, bent pieces, worn out springs... electrically they are just switches and coils and aren't much different than troubleshooting a slingshot or pop bumper.