I was thinking of starting a thread on a switcher related question, but I think this thread is fitting for this.
First, I'll start with, currently in 99% of my games I have original supplies. I'm planning on keeping things that way.
However, one benefit of switchers is efficiency. They should be more power efficient. Of course for most home use, this would not amount to a savings enough to recover the cost of the switcher and the time to put it in, but it is something that should fall in favor of the switcher.
What I'm curious about is failure modes and their effects on the voltage outputs to the boards.
Now, I'm sure there are failure modes that could do bad things in either supply, but I'm curious on a general level if a 'quality' switcher is 'safer' in terms of the chances of board damage occurring vs the linears. I doubt any arcade switcher is what I would call 'quality' (in terms of 20+ year longevity) unless I go through and replace all the caps with the best spec'd ones I could buy and made by a reputable cap maker. But I would think they would offer more protection in terms of when the fail vs some failures in linear supplies.
So, curious what folks think about that 'theory', and if there may be any truth to that.