So I finally took a road trip to Atlanta, where (I must say) Alan at Audio Alternative was more than kind and accommodating, having set a VPI Classic 1 next to a Versalex, installed identical broken-in DV carts, leaving me only to sit in the sweet spot and swap records and decks to my heart's content.
I immensely enjoyed both decks, and was a bit surprised, frankly, that choosing a "winner" was harder than I'd anticipated. They both sounded great. Those having commented above surely have better ears and vocabularies here, but what consistently stood out to me between the two decks is that, for all the additional detail the VPI seemed to pull from the records, it remained somewhat deader, restrained, and two-dimensional when compared to the WTL. Additionally, there were passages where it was clear that the VPI was letting me down, comparatively, in terms of capturing the tone of acoustic instruments - noticed most prominently when spinning Alison Krauss's So Long, So Wrong, where the mandolin sounded all cotton and catgut compared to the WTL's more true-to-life rendering. More involved funky passages from Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life were a bit of a mess on the VPI and vastly more enjoyable on the WTL, less...tedious. I enjoyed Pink Floyd's DSOTM more on the VPI, which also seemed to better resolve the in-your-face female voice on Gone at Last, from Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years. I eventually realized I'd stopped A/Bing the two tables and was just putting more vinyl onto the Versalex. All in all, clearly more open, "3D" and pleasurable on the whole than the Classic.
So I will soon have an Amadeus GTA on the way! My excitement is tempered only by the sad fact that I've now blown my budget for the moment, and the Amadeus will likely stay (mostly) boxed until I can afford to put a suitable cartridge on it (also perhaps adding a SUT to my mm phono stage). Baby steps. Thanks to all on the forum for the advice, and, again, I can't say enough good about Alan and all the folks at Audio Alternative - total analog wonderland for those of us in the southeast and a total pleasure to spend the day with.