New Teres Direct Drive Motor Available as Option

If you read the description this is not a direct-drive motor at all. At least not in the commonly accepted sense where the motor is built around the main bearing. In the Teres scheme, the platter is driven by the motor through some sort of intimate contact. In some sense, this is closer to rim drive than direct-drive. Semantics perhaps. I do not mean to bring up the whole boring "which is better direct-drive, rim drive or belt drive" thing and I am glad that you did not go there either.

"Do we think he spent three years designing a NOISIER motor than the off-the-shelf ones he's been buying from Maxon?"

Doug, with all respect, this seems a simplification, as it is the spectra of the noise, not simply the magnatude, that is of issue, and it is very possible that, as listeners, we react differently to different noise specta, much as is the case with amplifier distortion. So you or Chris may prefer the new motor, and someone else might not.