> I know that early versions had three degrees of freedom on the guide mirror (two tilt and back-and-forth). The reduction to one with the piston design has thrown some of the ‘baby out with the bathwater’ in my view..
I am thinking that too. I can see why it was done as It was easy to get into a mess with the old tip/tilt setup but the new setup depends on that wall of the spectrograph being very accurately square which cannot be guaranteed with the type of case construction used. Having reviewed what I posted on that ARAS thread, I am not convinced my alignment is quite as good as originally. There is not enough room for the old mechanism now though with the the calibration lamp mechanism.