Daniel T: Being in the industry myself, I really could not understand why all the manufacturers would not get together and standardize on the RCA low-level output.

Having variable output does not cost a lot, however, it does affect performance, that's why not a lot of company are doing it. The correct way of doing this is to have a specification (i.e. 1V output), then design toward this in the first place...

BTW, on a somewhat separate note, you might have notice that the input impedance (sensitivity) for the PHONO on the receiver is a lot lower than the other inputs (VCR, VIDEO, LD, DVD...). That's another story.