Buying Equipment Based on Philosophy???

To some degree - In evaluating turntables, I listened to low mass, high mass and suspension tables. 

Well, this certainly is intentional. Vendors all want you to feel a certain connection to the brand.  I mean, that's the entire purpose of branding.  To sell you an idea on a name or symbol which you want to associate yourself with due to ..... whatever.

This is missing the point. I'm not buying from a person or company because they are nice people....This ain't about lollypops and roses.....I'm buying because their design "philosophy" has merit on an engineering level. 

I agree to a small extent, but when all is said and done, it’s my ears and bank account that determine what I buy. 

The technical design philosophy has absolutely nothing to do with my purchase decisions. Great way to make poor choices. To me, except in the lowest level equipment. Now, the design philosophy of Audio Research and Conrad Johnson is not technically oriented, but of the sound quality characteristics they want to achieve. But if that philosophy took them somewhere other than where I wanted to go it also would be of no value… I wouldn’t give a hoot about what they said.

Choosing based on specific designs or philosophy is a great way to get a ok sounding system, at best.

Yep. Philosophy of demonstrated excellent high voltage, low capacitance topology, point to point wiring, pi (choke) filtered power supply, handmade equipment built with the finest components; in other words, the finest possible.