[QuadList] What's your Betacam flavor?

[Shai Drori]

Please excuse the cross posting.
A while ago I was faced with an upgrade issue to my betacam SP station. 
One of my clients claimed he only transfers tape on BVW series vtr's. He 
also refused to here about the J series claiming they were inferior. At 
the same conversation he also suggested I look into the Samma robot (he 
loves price tags). I didn't see the point of explaining to him that 
Samma works with J series, from my experience it's best to shut up. When 
I spoke to Sony service in NY, the guy on the other side of the phone 
made the following comments:
1. The BVW is aging and if it is an Ebay unit it might have poor quality 
playback.
2. Assuming we are looking for a cheap vtr in good condition the UVW 
might perform better since it is younger and it's caps are in better 
shape. Still, a serviced BVW will be better.
3. A better alternative would be an SX deck. It is younger still, 
usually has less head hours, and by design has excellent picture quality.

So my question is this:
Assuming we and looking for a cheap (~5K$US) yet excellent picture 
quality playback vtr, what would you choose and Why? Multi format decks 
can be included in this brain pick.
Cheers
Shai Drori