Thor, did you make your MAME cabinet yourself?
Well... I've been playing a TON of arcade games lately(share your high scores here) when and where I can find them. At home I use MAME just because all the games I want aren't in my area anywhere close. I love playing on the actual cabs though.
My current favorites that I practice every day on MAME are Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Dig Dug and Joust. Only two of those are available to me in machine form, at my local pizza spot. I hold high scores on both of them and I make sure to maintain that score when I can stop in. >=P
I really like the Wico joystick in the Ms. Pac-man machine(it has a blue ball top) but at home my Seimitsu LS-32 does the job. Those Wico are my favorite with a ball-top attached because of the smoothness and spring it has. I don't mind the Happ bat tops on a Mortal Kombat cab but for Street Fighter I only like to use Japanese sticks, mainly my Seimitsu, because it's so tight and accurate. I have a back-up Sanwa bat top for it, but I used it for a while and recently switched back, I missed the balltop.
I'm moving in the next few weeks into a place with a basement. I would love to get at least one arcade cabinet down there, but we'll see.. maybe in the future.
Has anyone ever been to a SuperAuctions show? When I lived in CA, I stayed with a woman whose daughter owned an arcade machine auction company called SuperAuctions. It was so much fun to go to the shows! They had all the machines set up on free play and you just stand around with everyone before the auction and play the heck out of them. If you can make it to one of the shows it's well worth it; the games are sometimes auctioned off for way cheap.