There is a lot in this post that is very good. And some stuff that is almost on target but not quite.
There are a million choices that make it seem very complicated. But if you want you can break it down into simpler categories.
This is a good statement and to break things down into simpler categories is a good idea.
Fast bat vs slow bat - everyone who has posted agrees you should get a pretty slow bat. Any of the 20 or so mentioned already will be fine. It doesn't make much difference which one. If you buy a fast bat, rated OFF, or OFF+ you won't be able to keep the ball in the table, and you will compensate by developing horrible crsmped up strokes. That will prevent you from ever really learning to play, should you decide to later.
So buy a slow bat, any one.
This is an okay way of saying things. But I feel it is not specific enough.
It is not just a slow blade that you want. You want a blade that is in the All+/Off- speed range, is ALL WOOD and 5 ply, that has decent flex, and gives you good feeling and good dwell time. A blade that helps you feel the contact of the ball, the quality of the contact, when you made good contact and when you made not so good contact. A slow blade with carbon will still mask some vibrations and make bad contact not feel like bad contact. That will cause a player to develop more slowly. Feeling when your contact is good and when your contact is not good, actually helps you improve how you contact the ball without you even realize it is happening.
So, not just a slow blade but: All+/Off-, All Wood, 5 ply, (not 7 because of less flex and less feel), decent flex, decent dwell time, and a blade that allows you to feel your ball contact easily. From the wood, this is what will help a player develop skills fastest.
Rubber is a little more complicated, but not much. No one has mentioned pips-out. If your goal is only ever to dominate at work, short pips with sponge might be the best path.
This could be true if the only goal was to beat his opponents without necessarily developing better technique. But adding pips out rubbers is usually better after someone has achieved a level where they can choose what style of play they want to pursue. Choosing pips out before he has decided how he really actually plays and before he has developed all the strokes to a decent level would force him into the style of play that is required by the pips rubbers.
But let's assume you are set on doubke-inverted, there are three choices, traditional, euro/jap, or chinese. Lots of people recommend traditional rubbers to everyone sriver and mark v. But those rubber suck. Don't buy them. They were good in the 1970s. A 1975 Mercedes was a great car, but if you went to buy acar today is that what you would pick?
Mark V is pretty decent. I can spin the heck out of the ball with Mark V. It actually works pretty well with the Poly balls too. And it has great control and makes handling incoming spin quite easy. So I would not agree with this. However, I would have to see a person play to decide what rubbers I would recommend to him. Some people who say they are beginners, I look at them play and tell them to go for tensors right off the bat. Others, I see them play and I feel, maybe tensors will never be something they are ready for. So, it really depends on what the person is doing with the racket and how they contact the ball as a beginner. For some, learning to spin with a rubber like Mark V is really better than jumping to a tensor. For someone who starts off with skill in brushing, then they could go right to tensors.
Chinese rubbers like hurricanes and skyline, tinarc, and many more, are great rubbers. But they demand a lot from your technique. Most chinese olayers get some amount of coaching even if only in school. O if you don't plan to get some coaching I would skip all the chinese rubber.
I agree with what you have said. But there is also another category of Chinese rubbers that are very inexpensive and very user friendly. Chinese rubbers that are trying to duplicate the qualities of the Euro rubbers, like 2008XP, Inspirit, Air Illumina, Gambler. And they are all pretty toned down compared to a lot of the top of the line tensor rubbers. So they would be excellent for learning with. Truthfully, Der_Ecthe's budget buster blade--Yinhe Galaxy 896 for $16.00 USD--and Air Illumina Delta--would be an amazing first setup and would cost about $48.00 so quite inexpensive.
That leaves spinny euro/jap rubbers. There are like 1,000,000. It doesn't matter too much which ones you pick. They have differences, the sponge and topsheet can be harder or softer, and the arrangement of the pips underneath changes how they play some. But for you starting out it doesn't matter. Any of them will pair well with your slow bat and be a fine place to start. If later you join a club then you try many people's setups and find one that feels good to you and works with your strokes and buy that. Vega series or Omega series, rasanter, rasant, bluefire, acuda, evolution, rakza, tenergy, fastarc, pick any of them.
Some of this is right on point. But some of this is not.
Rubbers like Ransant, Rasanter, Bluefuire, Evolution, Rakza, FastArc, Tenergy: On the plus side, they create massive amounts of spin; On the minus side, they are WAY TOO spin sensitive to be useful to someone learning how to play.
Older generation tensor rubbers like the Vega series, would be excellent. A rubber like Roundell which, for an advanced player is more than just very vanilla, but for a beginner it allows a lot of room for mistakes because of what good control it has. A new rubber that plays like older generation tensors like Nexy Karis M would also be in this category.
So the theory behind a lot of what you are saying is actually very good. But then there are a few gaps in what you are presenting.
