@elliottbnewcombjr
Rega are an interesting example of engineering-driven development. One example is the three-bolt attachment they use for their own cartridges. Notably, two of the holes are at the standard 1/2" spacing used by most manufacturers, so they are compatible with most third-party cartridges. Any engineer can tell you that 3 contact points are more secure than 2. Three can also often be better than four, as you have found with your rack! My main deck and my phono stage both use three-points of contact, which is ideal for levelling if not for stability 
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I am sure you will agree that 4-mm adjustment would get the Rega arm parallel to the record for almost all cartridges. But that 4-mm equates to only 1-degree of tracking error, which is way under the 2-degrees of Horizontal Tracking Angle error of most pivoting tonearms under ideal set-up conditions. It is also much less than typical production tolerances of Stylus Rake Angle and errors setting most diamond styli into cantilevers. Hence Roy Grundy’s assertion that VTA does not really matter.
Roy Grundy started his professional life working for Ford of England. At that time, Ford was working hard to keep cost and mass out of its cars, in particular the Cortina. This culminated in the Lotus Cortina, with input from Colin Chapman whose recipe for increasing performance was to "add lightness". Adding lightness reduces the amount and cost of raw materials, and makes shipping easier.
Ford also had massive industrial relations issues, and reliability. Roy started by fixing other manufacturer’s tables before delivery, and has created a collaborative workplace, not easy to achieve in the UK.
In a light car, NVH suffers. Noise, Vibration and Harshness. Adding sound deadening increases weight, and heavy flywheels are needed to smooth the impulses from Internal Combustion Engines. I think if Roy Gundy had started at Rover, his record playing designs might be a bit different.
Arguably, players need a massive end (the platter) and the lightest possible effective stylus mass. Rega has been working its way up from very affordable decks, towards the higher-end, with 10 models in its current range. Obviously, one would expect sound quality to improve, or in the other direction, compromises to be made to keep costs down.
Having so many models provides a recurrent benefit, in that the HiFi press has a lot to talk about, which in turn keeps the Rega name front-of-mind for many. Rega’s focus on vibration control has much in common with another English manufacturer, Wilson Benesch who operate at the pinnacle of high-end - and high mass where it matters.
Now if only Quad had produced a few more electrostatic speaker models to excite the HiFi press...
