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Meade & Celestron SCT's have extremely well secured primary mirrors. The way they are designed, collimation can only be achieved via the secondary. Mak's cannot be post factory collimated as far as I know.
I've had my Celestron C5 for nearly 20 years. It too has done several thousand kms. It might need a tweek, but I still wouldn't bother its image quality is still so good.
Collimation seems to hold some sort of curse quality in its name. There is no mystery to it. It is just a tiny tweeking of the mirrors. The mirrors are deliberately held in cells that allow for these adjustments. If they were held static, there runs the risk of them actually breaking, or if knocked, then not being able to be realigned.
The tools that are available today make the process so much quicker and easier than ever. I don't see it as an obstacle to choosing a newt over some other optical system. For me, other factors are more important.
Collimating an SCT is much more sensitive a process. They require similar tools as reflectors, but specialized to them.
Refractors are the other optical type that doesn't need collimating.
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