I've used the broom method too.
The sterns slides are just pathetic aren't they? I hate the bump to slide them back in. I see that one of the mod makers sells something to eliminate that bump, I just wish stern would redesign them.
I could never bring myself to do the whole “jolt playfield over the bump to get it sliding again” move, just felt weird to me and unnecessarily abusive?
Probably in my head I know, and I’m sure the ops do it all the time and cause no issues, but I always used to reach down the back of the playfield and lift it over the bump. A bit uncomfortable and inconvenient, but no jolt.
Really crappy rails system. B/W had a much better system in
TZ which was 20+ years older. Although they did have that horrible one sided prop system, I used it once and saw the playfield creak and twist under its own weight, never again.
It does seem strange that there has been no real innovation in these areas in all that time. As said above the Thunderbirds system is probably the best version around, but there is plenty of room for improvement. Gas assisted lift as said before seems like an obvious one.