Why the sudden popularity of 12 inch arms

There's a pretty lengthy discussion of this topic in the new issue of Hi-Fi plus. Much of it kind of blew past me, but I remembered that the 12 in arm compared to the shorter arm makes 25% less tracking errors.

Rather than posting on a new thread, I thought I'd use this thread to ask anyone out there on their experience with a couple of 12" arms: Ikeda IT-407 and Ortofon 309D. And from reputation only, the Da Vinci Grandezza would provide much better performance than the Ikeda and the Ortofon (albeit at a cost)? Thank you very much.

That's tremendous! Good to know, Sirspeedy. I was expecting a comparison with 9" arms, but knowing that - w/ proper set-up - the 12" arms rival the performance of linear arms only further cements the likelihood of going w/ 12" arm. Again, I'm looking for good recommendations. Grandezza is probably my dream arm, as the price is way too steep for me. As mentioned, looking into Ortofon 309D, Ikeda IT-407, and EMT 997, as I just read Art Dudley's review of it...