Teacher's Pet is an EM that I looked around for a while before finding a nice one. The game play is really great and fast. One thing that bothered me from the get-go was the way the progression for the drop target scoring was set up. Basically it progresses from 50 to 500 points as you spell "Teacher's Pet". The problem is that once you have spelled it fully, the drop targets become "Special" and score no points. Add to that if you already have the "S" and "P" early in the game you skip right over 400 and 500 and go straight to Special when you get the "R".

So long story short, the way the scoring is controlled, this can be modified very easily. The Special relay has three normally closed switches. By jumpering closed two of those switches, it leaves the 500-light and the 500-point scoring active along with the Special, so you get both for hitting a drop target. Alternately you could disable the Special relay which would simply halt the progress at 500 and you would get 500 points and no special from then on. I prefer hearing the knock, so went with the first method.

To me this makes the game more fun and would be much more friendly for tournament play too.
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I just want to add on to this post that there is a third normally closed contact on the Special relay. You want to make sure that you DO NOT jumper this switch and just jumper the other two NC switches. If you jumper the third NC switch, the Special relay coil will most likely burn out the first time you complete "Teacher's Pet" in a game and light Special. I very carefully installed the jumpers with the game turned on after manually achieved lighting Special. This way I saw the 500-light come on as I installed the first jumper and there was no buzzing relay as I installed the second. After putting both jumpers in, I hit a drop target and sure enough was awarded both the Special knock and 500 points. I then sequenced through a couple of games with the glass off to make sure everything was working as expected.
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I apologize if I didn't explain it well enough. The way you explain it above is exactly how my game functions - there is nothing wrong with it. Point is that in a lot of cases you never see 400 or 500 because you have already gotten the later letters in the sequence. So yes, you can get every single letter but the T or the E at the top and the drop targets are worth just 50 points still. Get that last letter and it goes right from 50 to special - skipping everything in between. That is the way it is designed and it is plain as day in the schematics in the second to last picture of my original post.

The way it transitions in itself is not what I disliked about the scoring. I disliked the fact that special scores zero rather that continuing to score 500. In the arcade back in 1965, a Special meant a free game and therefore more valuable than points. In my arcade we play for points and completing Teachers Pet is tough enough that there should be a nice reward.

This is really a fun game and I am glad to hear there are others out there who love it!

I'm looking into mods for games like Dodge City and Ship Mates to disable the way they carry over progress from game to game. I would like to be able to have them reset every time you start a game. In this case though it is pretty much strictly for tournament play each game starts with the same scoring enabled. Furthermore these mods would preferably be done with one or more switch or added plug, so it could easily be switched to play as normal when not being used in competition.