To expand on creeds' comment, there were lots of "junk" tables produced by many Japanese manufacturers, Technics was not unique in that. The reason? Large companies (relatively) produced a wide range of products to appeal to the full spectrum of the market. That meant lots of quality compromises at the lower price points. But Technics, Denon, Kenwood, Sony, JVC, etc. all produced quality tables for the upper portion of their price range, in addition to many cheap lightweight models.
Another point regards the reputation of the SL1200 series as "DJ" tables. Those were designed and sold initially as consumer products. As it happened, some years later the DJ crowd discovered the very good build quality and durability in the modestly priced 1200s and adopted them as their standard instrument. That demand is what kept the 1200s in production long after their competitors gave up. So while the DJ label suggests a negative reputation to audiophiles and music lovers, it really speaks well for the quality of the units.
In fact I believe the discovery of the musical qualities of the SL1200s led the way to renewed interest in direct drive tables at least 15 years ago. Used ones were inexpensive and they responded to a few modest upgrades, thus an underground reputation began building which lead to reconsideration of several quality used DD tables.
