SME V : what to expect ?

Agree with Peterayer. I've had SME V on Sota Star ( vacuum ) and sounded great.
Cartridges used were Koetsu Rosewood, Black, Madrigal Carnegie and van den hul grasshopper. Other arms compared with at the time were ET2, Syrinx PU3, Alphason, Sumiko The Arm & FT3 and a few others. Never had balancing problems with SOTA's.
Van den hul was best match in terms of balance with the SME V.

I've found the SME V I had seemed to get out of the way and let the cartridge do it's job.
Are there better arms?
Sure, but the SME is well thought out and most people will get pretty good results without weeks of tweeking.
I have a Basis Vector which I probably prefer but it took a good few weeks of fiddling to get there. With the SME you can get pretty much all the way there within a few hours.
Stringreen, I'd guess something was awry with the springs on your Sota as I (like Dover) had no problems balancing the SME on the Star I had.

I have an SME V on a Sota Sapphire w/ Shelter 901 but I wouldn't if the combo resulted in lifeless sound and dull bass. Bass speed and prat are two of my main requirements when judging components and I got rid of a nearly unused and pristine condition HW-19 MKIV with both a JMW-9 and Audiocraft AC300 MKII tonearm because it couldn't keep up with the Sota/SME combo.

If it doesn't make me want to snap my fingers or tap my toes, I don't need it.

Lespier et al....I changed the springs twice, but always had the same issues. I've heard the SME in other systems that was quite nice, but it never worked for me. Sometimes trolls are doing their dirty work with high end systems. I've experience this a number of times. This is especially true for cables...in one system a certain brand is fine, in another system not so good at all.

I have never felt my SMEs sounded "dull and lifeless" at all. The "liveliness" on the SME V can be adjusted somewhat with the depth of the dampening paddle - or deactivate the dampening altogether.