As someone who has a Model D in my basement, this seems wildly off-base. The cheap water rowers with plastic belts I've used in hotel gyms felt way worse than the metal belt. The noise is almost exclusively from the flywheel and not the chain anyways. And stability has never been an issue - I love that the C2 is relatively light and easy to move. I've never used a C2 that felt anything but rock solid, even the ancient ones at my old gym.

I feel like a cool business model would be to make a replacement color screen for the C2s that can do more stuff. Their built-in games and programs are fun but very limited. I would love to have a Peloton experience on a 500 dollar screen I could add to my existing rower.