Great to hear, Gordon! I think I found a pretty sweet deal on one as well (<$240, shipping inc.), and will probably order it after the holiday weekend. Should look nice sitting next to the ETX-125PE!

The noise sounds a lot worse than it actually is, we're just hyper aware of it because it's likely very quiet around us at night. For what it's worth, I've used my 125 on my balcony (I live in a high-rise), and nobody has ever mentioned hearing a strange "whir" or "morse code" coming from my porch.

As far as the alignment issue... that one is a bit of a stumper. Only thing I can think of is the drop-down mirror that the ETX's use as a diagonal might be a bit "tight" for lack of a better term. Ideally, it should be at 45° relative to your objective and eyepiece. Being new, it might not be "bottoming out" at the proper angle. If it were only dropping to, say, 43° instead, there would be an apparent discrepancy between the diagonal view and the straight view.

Perhaps if you carefully worked the mirror up and down a few times to "break it in" a bit, it might fall into proper alignment. Of course, this is pure speculation on my part. There may be another reason altogether for it, but it has a ring of plausibility to it.

In any event, congratulations on the new scope! May you enjoy it for many, many years to come!