Glen, your experience with balancing a Newt has me intrigued. I'll look at using the same approach with my own asap to see how it works out. So far my own experience has been the OTA wants to rotate and out of balance once the OTA is turn say 90° in RA from vertical. All the same, a big Newt is a different load situation from a Cass, and needs different consideration from a Cass for the mount not to be adversely affected.
My posting of that f/30 Mak was a flippant one... That is a pretty much just a planetary and lunar scope. It's a shame that there are not reducers for Maks (not that I'm aware of). That would be a game changer.
A big SCT with reducer I still see as a plausible option. A "two scopes in one" situation. Difficulty is finding a great SCT. Yes you can barlow a big Newt, I'm also thinking of the ergonomics of such a scope not just for the mount, but your obs too.
I hope you see my posts as looking into this, and not implying Maks are the be all and end all - I have only 2 Cats of the 12 scopes I have, and of those two are fracs, Newts are everything else. I'm thinking only about your application, and being Devil's Advocate to make sure all aspects are investigated
Alex.