To pivot or to track?

Okay, we need to talk...

After going public about the project, I received quite a bit of feedback regarding the motion system for the tonearm. Someone went as far as saying:

Not going to bother following. For this to work vertically, it must be linear tracking, otherwise the side forces would be enormous, even with a tonearm that was mostly vertical at the half radius position. Lovely design for the platter, but horrendous engineering anyway.

Despite the forces claim being ungrounded and, frankly, false, it got me thinking. And then doodling. And then designing. And this is what I came up with:

The sad truth is that the idea was actually great and I love that it had been pointed out to me. The design is clean and kinematics is actually simpler than the pivot's. All in all, despite a few potential gotchas (e.g. I am not sure how to pass wires to the plinth without causing excessive drag on the sledge) I love it -- in isolation. 

And this is where the sadness of the truth comes out. Because when I put my newly designed linear tracking assembly on the plinth, this happened:

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it looks ugly, and I am not sure how to fix that. Compared to balanced and -- quite importantly -- warm, nostalgia-bearing and recognisable design of the pivot arm, this looks functional and cold. I don't see a record player in this contraption, it looks like some kind of industrial machinery to me.

I don't want this on my shelf.

So I am stuck.