Help with TT ideas for my first TT

I recently spoke to an old friend who owns a Hi Fi store in Michigan. His first choice for a starter audiophile deck is the Sota Escape. I am a big time Sota fan and I had no idea this table existed! It is an....interesting looking turntable. It has a great drive system probably the best of the group. The Rega 220 arm is certainly serviceable but probably most important is the company. They (Donna) are very responsive and will bend over backwards for you. 

As for pops and clicks in vinyl, on records that are well cared for the music will mask them except during the quietest passages. Well designed phono stages and styli are most definitely quieter. It is really just the deep scratches that are a real problem. 

When have you been to a concert where there is no background noise?
Coughing, talking, glass clinking, walking etc.  Digital is actually abnormally quiet! Ears are connected to a psycho-active device, your brain. I usually get a lot of flack when I bring this up. Have you ever wondered by women in general do not like loud volumes? Why are they the ones that are always turning it down? Why is this such a male predominant hobby? You married guys, how many times has your wife slapped you in the face waking you up from a nice dream saying in a loud whisper, "What's that!" In nature women are responsible for protecting the children. Many of their behaviors are centered around this instinct. Women are always listening to the environment for any sign of danger. They are uncomfortable with loud music for this reason. The funny thing is that this instinct is not active prior to childbirth, only after. I bring this up as an example. 80% of the SUV buyers are female and if you ask women they will tell you why. They are more comfortable being up higher. Why?
Easier to see danger coming. Men? We want to be powerful. We buy pickup trucks and overpowered sports cars. Why don't we care about volume levels? We do. We want to be as loud and threatening as possible hopefully scaring our enemies away. We also dress up in war paint and pierce our noses and ears with bones so our enemy knows we have no trouble tolerating pain. Does all this affect the way we perceive background noise? 

Kro 77, Hey I'm up in southern NH!
Anyway, you might want to look at the MoFi Studiodeck. I have a friend in the business who thinks that is the best low priced TT. I have not used any of these turntables so I have no direct opinion. Certainly if you are just getting started I would not spend anything more than you are. It would be a pity to spend $5K on a table to find out you don't like it. I would say once you get to 100 records you might consider moving up.  

I hate to say this (not really) But VPI makes some of the worst turntables on the market. Their engineering is strictly stone age. I'm in big trouble now 🥵  The truth will set you free? 

Clearaudio did advance the art with the development of the magnet thrust system on their bearings and their motors are excellent but otherwise their turntables do not offer much more than VPI tables do. Their tonearms vacillate between pretty good and downright terrible.
VPI's unipivot arms are downright terrible. Their new gimbal bearing arm is a vast improvement. Both VPI and Clearaudio are more interested in cosmetics than performance. Thus the turntables at the bottom end of their ranges give more performance for the money. With their more expensive units both companies become hyper focused on isolating the platter from the motor instead of isolating the entire turntable from everything else in the environment which IMHO is far more important given modern motors are very quiet and are spinning quite slowly. 

The really bad pops that make it through the music are caused by a deep scratch usually caused by miss handling, It is very rare to have a record come with a scratch like this. 
As for stylus life there are several variables that are important. First is quality of the diamond. A pristine clean diamond is critical. Any inclusions will cause accelerated wear. Good diamonds sparkle white when viewed with a USB microscope. Then there is the shape of the diamond. The more diamond that contacts the groove the slower the wear. Older spherical and elliptical diamonds are going to wear faster than modern fine line types. Then there is tracking force. Too low is just as bad if not worse than too high as the cartridge starts bouncing around in the groove pounding into the groove walls. One play like this can ruin a record. Always set up your cartridge with an old record you do not care about. 
Playing dirty records never helps. A stylus is always going to collect some lint on occasion. This is harmless. A ball of gunk stuck to the stylus is an indicator of dirty records and means a change in record hygiene is indicated.