I see, certainly new vinyl is a mixed bag. I'm not sure how good the new BlueNote 50s albums are, they should be better than the pop records but some prefer the old vinyl it seems. If you visit the states there should be much used Jazz available there. Yes, pressings as I said about this guy: numerous different pressings and some of the best ones are extremely expensive but then some of the cheaper ones can be very good also. If you have access to playing LPs at a dealer or a friends that would be a good way to compare. I would like to compare Analogue Productions vinyl v the HiRes version. Pity they have stopped their downloads but I don't think they were available in the UK anyway, I did try to order Somethin' Else - Cannonball Adderley once. The vinyl edition of that is way better than the cd, the High Res version is an improvement. Yes vinyl is a bit more involved than digital, although even cds there can be numerous different versions of each album.
Pity prices are so high in the UK for records.
Not something to rush into. Direct drive you just change the speed with a button, belts you need to change the belt over.
Semi-auto I thought was just lift off, full auto return back to the start.
Research online, then have a few demos at dealers. Not sure what brands are available to you.
Speed change on a belt drive can also be done using a 'button' (or knob) and you don't always need to take the platter off and so it's the same difference.