As for the difficulty and variability I believe the issue is with how the demogorgon sits. Glass off at 6.5 degrees at the flippers power at 225 I can hit it consistently if I make sure the demogorgon is sitting leaning forward. Problem is on mine the rocking action of the demogorgon is not smooth and I don't think it reliably settles back into the slight forward lean. I've tried loosening it up by manually rocking it back and forth and with the glass off I can hit it 9 out of ten times. Put the glass back on and after a missed shot it becomes nearly impossible to hit. Sometimes I can nudge the machine just enough to rock it back into position and make the shot. What it really needs is some mechanism to place the demogorgon back to the same lean after a failed shot. I'm looking at adding a spring to the back as I don't think it will take too much force to do so but I will need to take the whole thing apart and have not had time to do that.
For now I ignore it and just shoot modes and only deal with it if I have to. Again starting with a few nudges to try to get it back to the forward lean. Maybe those that are consistent have a mechanism that is settling back to the same spot every single time. Mine is not.
What I am really hoping we hear from stern is that they are addressing the demogorgon shot difficulty and issuing a mech update like they did with the GB slimer. Given that you are expected to make that shot reliably at least 7 or 8 times in a game to get to the final wizard mode it needs to not be this difficult or reliant on specific playfield angle.
Anaheim, CA
