thats good advice, well put but I will add a little
Rod Holes: well, historically Tornado has never had the precision of precision engineered machines with tolerances at the .000001 of an inch and so forth...so, many tables rod holes are NOT drilled with the precision we all would like...Mark Murrell has documented this in a more scientific way
however, the holes aren't always drilled too low, some times it is just that the near hole isn't precisely aligned with the far hole so the rod is not perfectly horizontal with the table surface...this has been around the life of the table but has rarely (no table I have ever played on) been bad enough to create the ball lifting issue your source is talking about...not never, just no large batch obviously drilled low and no reason to not buy a table
up until the past couple of tournaments that Tornado has been running on the new Platinum Tour Ed table, the one with all the changes, especially at Worlds this year, that the drilling imperfection your source talks about has surfaced...some tables at Nationals (none I played on but at least one side of one table in the "pits") and many at Worlds had the holes drilled too low, not just misaligned. Rollover shooters in particular were having big issues since the man would come around and sort of just scoop the ball up into the rods
Tornado has not really made this table available to the general public so you aren't going to run into any of them unless you were to consider buying a tournament used and I don't think Tornado is giving any of them up yet
soooo, your Gry Mrbl may not be perfect, but it really isn't likely to have a noticable issue
Table Surface: Okay, again good but not complete...yes, warping is a deal breaker, trying to fix a warped surface or really warped or bubbling side walls are both deal killers unless you are super crafty like Mark Murrell
with that said talking about the metal wraped tables 2007-2008
Toward the end of the run and around the same time two important negative things happened...one is that they made a change in the production of the playing surface and there are a bunch of these tables with warped surfaces...if you get one of these warped surface tables you will own the worst Tornado ever made…I have had the misfortune of having to play on one of these and it ranks with the worst foosball experiences I can remember...EVER! there is no excuse and no fixing it...
The warped playing surface tables showed up at Tornado tournaments to the dismay of many...there is a "fix" suggested out there were you put blocks under the top to push up the surface (available on other board)...I won't get into details but a warped playing surface on any table in foosball is unacceptable PERIOD...the playing surface needs to be replaced by the manufacture...this is bad enough it should have a recall. Note: Tornado acknowledges that the warping is real and their problem. Tornado send a new surface but you have to replace the surface yourself and this is not easy for most people. Best not to get one to begin with.
ADDED - so unless you are trying to get one of those tables you are probably safe...I have seen some badly abused Tornado tables that have had gallons of beer spilled on them and not cleaned over a long period of time and the it caused warping and I would have someone buying a table always to check but yours is probably okay, we will see with the pictures
Replacing Laminate: should not be an issue for a person who is handy...it is simply put on and if you are careful, you just take the pieces off one at a time, whole, and use them as a template...now, getting the replacement laminate might be an issue but whenever you decide to tackle that, you can look further into getting the material from Tornado and doing something unique that fits your personality...you know like diamonds or other precisous stones
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