GS's input into a pinball machine is little more than a bean counter. It would be the equivalent of Neal NiCastro from Bally/Williams making a trip over to Australia back in the '90s to make a s.c.r.i.p.t.e.d spiel about their latest machine and people (overwhelmingly dealers and operators in those days) were given the "privilege" of paying to hear it. It's absurd hubris and like any diligent bean counter, he gets to write the entire trip off as a business expense on his next 401k.

A real symposium would have at least one of the designers of the current machine fly out to talk first hand about the machine in question and tell us how much of the original design concepts had to be removed to fit in with Gazza's predetermined BOM. That way we can all see what we are really missing out on in the final product, rather than the usual meaningless superlatives some members of the pinball community seem to salivate over. It's bordering on Pavlovian when you step back and look at it.

I still have no idea what this "symposium" is all about. It sounds like an important word.

It's a euphemism for huckstering, another important word, mate.  

See you there.........