OK yes, but don't expect SOTA performance. There have been improvements in the mechanisms of cartridge over the last 40-50 years

Also, if using high output MM cartridges of this sort, you really have to pay attention to loading of the cartridge! See this link for more information.
http://www.hagtech.com/loading.html
If you don't pay attention to this, recordings may sound shrill due to the electrical resonance of the cartridge and tonearm cable and having nothing to do the LPs at all!!
I find this comment highly suspect. If you are having problems with the string section sounding right, if I were you I'd look into the age of your stylus (past 5 years its shot no matter how much time is on it since the suspension of the cantilever will perish), cartridge loading (see link above) and also the provenience of your LPs. For example, inexpensive reissues often sound bright because they lack the bass of the originals, since mastering LPs without bass is so much easier (and therefore cheaper) for the mastering engineer. Also look to the label- I've found that the various labels doing classical music vary quite a lot in terms of how well they were able to document the musical event.
Old stereo LPs can sound amazing and is a reason why some of them were so collectable.
I challenge that statement...
In a number of critical ways, we have gone backwards in cartridge technology and performance...
The key aspect where we have gone backwards is effective tip mass.
The peak of performance (the lowest effective tip mass) was achieved with the Technics EPC100mk4 - using very very thin walled boron tube cantilevers. There were a number of manufacturers at the time that used either Boron or Beryllium tube cantilevers resulting in very very low effective mass.
That then pushes the mechanical resonance up above the audible range, reduces tracking distortions and increases tracking ability, etc...
By the late 80's - the SOTA was clearly defined....
The needle profiles we still use today were all available at that time
The critical mass of manufacturing volume required for high end cantilevers dropped off in the 90's, Beryllium was a health and safety issue - and the facilities making those shut down (there are work arounds but they are expensive...)
Boron tube cantilevers - similarly an expensive technology not particularly suited to mass production...
And in the meantime we had moved to an environment where snake oil, and "magic thinking" was driving sales, rather than measured and measurable performance.
There are some areas where the state of the art has progressed... eg: anti resonant body construction, but these are aspects of performance that have very small impacts, relative to the massive impact that the mass of the cantilever has on the performance across multiple areas.
Today, we can choose from solid boron, ruby and sapphire cantilevers ... nice but not a patch on the best of the 1980's
In terms of the bodies/generators - the best of the 1980's had laminations to reduce the impact of eddy currents, and differing materials for mounting and resonance control were used...
MM's were also made in low-output versions, which behave (and need to be loaded) much like MC's - the Stanton LZS cartridges are a prime example.... and by the way, they share their styli with the high output 881... - the LOMM's reduced things like eddy current issues to a non issue (much like LOMC's)
My measurements of the 881 stylus, seems to indicate that this stylus has its cantileverresonance at around 19kHz - that makes it the highest resonance of any aluminium cantilever I have come across ... ie: lowest effective tip mass.
As a contrast... I have measured 2 different Jico SAS Boron examples, and the cantilever resonance on these was 14kHz and 16kHz respectively.
So today, some of the best boron cantilevers, cannot match a 40 years old aluminium cantilever from Stanton.
I do agree with how important it is to get the loading right on an MM cartridge...
With regards to suspension, the Stanton and Pickering cartridges do not appear to suffer from suspension degradation.
This "suspension rot" effect has been known to affect certain brands and certain stylus models from within those brands in particular... others appear to be totally immune to aging.
My Stanton/Pickering styli, seem to be good (measurably so!) even though they are decades old, so do my AT and Ortofon styli.
Technics styli are particularly prone to suspension rot (especially the TOTL models from the 80's), and some of the TOTL ADC cartridges had major suspension rot issues, but they varied by production batch, as ADC experimented a lot with formulations, and fixed some of the suspension rot issues with later production batches.
The main proponents of the "suspension rot" theory, are cartridge and stylus retailers, who benefit from the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) around this!!