I hated this series when it first came out. Now I'd almost kill for one.
While the tone arm was a definite improvement over the previous Mk2 series and the passing years have brought to light a few overall design issues, what I hated most about these tables (1600Mk2, 1700Mk2, 1800Mk2) was that the fully digital pitch control of the previous lineup had been discontinued for a continuously variable analog system. Of course, this pitch arrangement (via slider) became the de facto standard on the 1200Mk2 and its successors.