"Back in the day", I wish I had tried Micro Acoustics's piezo cartridges as they would seem to solve a lot of problems regarding cartridge loading:
http://roger-russell.com/sonopg/micropg.htm
And they could be had for a good deal less money than Sao Win's strain gauge cartridge.
A word to the wise: If you've got a stash of dead or worn cartridges, or even the fancy boxes they came in, they may be worth money! I cringe at the memory of someone cutting open a broken Mark Levinson ML-C1, as they might as well have burnt a couple of $100 bills. IIRC I was paid about $175 for a Fidelity Research MC201 with bent cantilever (potentially rebuildable) and maybe $75 for the solid oak box which had once housed the aforementioned ML-C1. Too bad that cartridges with jewel cantilevers like the Dynavector Ruby/DV23R apparently can't be retipped.