Balancing a scope IS a big issue, but you know, it is only an issue for SOME scopes. German equatorial/SCT configurations are fairly immune to many of the balance issues that plague dob users.

People who have servo go-to Dobs, which is a fair number of people these days, also are immune to the balance issue.

On my gem-mounted refractors I've never had to worry about balance.

If you have a refractor on a Gibraltar, you need to worry. And I have heard you need to worry on disc mount. I define worry as having to do anything.

Once I've set my scope or scopes up for the night, I'm done with the balance issue regardless of what eyepiece I put in. The most I might do is tighten, or loosen, a clutch.

So, to conclude, a lot of scope owners are not worrying about weight, and do not figure it into their calculations.

However, we pay for that in setup time. If you have a simple undriven dob you can set up fast, in some cases in a minute or so, but now you've got the eyepiece weight issue.

regards
greg n