Is Direct Drive Really Better?

Direct drive, idler wheel, belt drive. There are good and bad implementations of all of these, just like suspended and non-suspended tables.

BTW, your car analogy is a bit flawed when you consider what the engine's flywheel is designed to do. A stock car will have a heavy flywheel from the factory which helps get the car going from a standing start. When I used to drag race one of the first things we did was to lighten the flywheel just enough to help get the rpm's up quickly. Too much and you had trouble getting the car off the line.

Is this a joke?

It is too bad that so many shoddy, cheap, direct-drive tables were churned out in the 70s and 80s. Many truly sound terrible and have given this drive system a bad name. Regrettably, most people have not had the opportunity to hear a properly set-up Denon DP-6000, or an SP-10. As these were motor units, the choice of plinth is quite critical. Feast your eyes on the direct-drive museum, http://de.geocities.com/bc1a69/museum_eng.html
here you will see numerous examples of correctly implemented direct-drive tables. Sonically, they offer a very different set of strengths and weaknesses than traditional belt drive units. I own both belt drive and direct-drive tables, but my Micro Seiki MR-711 really brings me a lot of joy as did my Denon DP-6000 and Micro Seiki DDX-1000 before it, and that's what it's all about. No joke.