For the replacement cost of the motor you could almost get a used super jolly which is in a completely different class. They can be had from the mid 200 to mid 400 depending on how lucky you get.

It's been awhile since I've had a Rocky but I would imagine before changing a motor changing of the bearings would be the starting point. I have changed bearings on a SJ not too hard....like I said don't know how the Rocky is put together

I'm a Rocky owner too, you can see the mods I had to do to get a decent grind out of it here:

More Rancilio Rocky mods

But my bottom burr/motor does not present this wobble at this time (less than a year of use), so this mods are to keep the top burr steady.

If it happened to mine I would try to carry the motor to a local electrical motors service, to see if someone knowledgeable can fix it for a small charge.

I found that doing the teflon tape mod reduced any (serious) slop in the threads that allowed the burr alignment to be affected by pressing on the hopper, but your solution is another option, Martin. I also did a stepless mod, but slightly different than yours.

Once I had done these mods though, I was extremely happy until this recent change. Still not sure what to do -- I'm just not sure that repair or replacement of the motor, or buying a new Rocky, will get me back to the grind quality I had before. And I can't think of an obvious upgrade that gets me both espresso and filter grinding in a reasonably small, reasonably clean and easy to use unit. Again, the Vario seems the obvious answer, but I don't have confidence in the grind adjustment mechanism.

Call me nuts, but when I pay $400 for a grinder I should not have to gerry-rig it with some duck tape or a usb cable

The last thing I want to mod is an espresso grinder, I do not mind jailbreaking or modding an iPod, but there you go; maybe I am different.

I bring this up simply because I am in the market for a grinder and I want to ask the people who have gone before me to tell me at what price level and which brands can I rely on to get what I pay for--a grinder that works out of the box.

I have a very average machine, an Ascaso Dream Versatile. I actually would love to replace that too because the steaming is crap. The shots are great, but trying to get a good microfoam on the Dream, well...isn't very dreamy. My technique is good enough to microfoam when I work in the cafe, so...again, the dream is not at all dreamy.

I know the grinder is most important so I simply put that as #1 on the check list. Any grinder and machine help is a help, but grinder is the most important for me right now and I do not want to have to be macgyver