I bought my first fun house a few years ago and was able to buy a repro from Illinois pinball. Last year I bought a restored funhouse with a Gen 2 translite in it. I switched them before I sold my old one. They look close. Just not perfect compared to silk screen. My mmr has Gen 2 in it and it looks real good.

I kept the ipb one it was silkscreen printed. The Gen 2 are just printed.

I just recently replaced mine with a next-gen from PPS. Not sure if what I replaced was original or a repro but like you mentioned each and every bulb created a hot-spot that looked like crap.

The next gen, while losing some of the fine detail say in the billboard area on the left, completely solves the lighting problem and in my opinion is MUCH better than what I had. From the player's viewing distance, the details look fine. If you laid the old and new side-by-side then, yes, you can see some loss but it's trivial.

If you've got the hot spots like I had, don't hesitate.

PPS did have to send me two of them as the first had some sort of offset on one of the colors but they stepped up and replaced it, no problem. Just inspect yours when you get it.