One thing about GEs is that they are very thirsty. If you are on a well or live where water rates are high, that can be a factor. Also, if you are going to use a machine of any age as your daily driver, it helps to have a second or even three or more machines to spread out the work. An added bonus: if you have a second machine, you can drain the wash water from the GE into the second machine, add some detergent and wash a second load of clothes, instantly cutting water consumption by half.
When you get your GE and lift up the top, you will see how much room there is between the basket and the outer tub. The reason for this is that GE kept the same suspension system from their solid tub machines when they went to the perforated basket machines so the perforated inner tub needs just as much room to swing around in the outer tub as the solid tub did, but that area has to be filled with water in the perforated tub machine. Granted the FilterFlo system helps pump all of that water through the load, but I found that I could wash larger loads in my large capacity KitchenAid washer than I could in my V12 GE with the same amount of water when I drained wash water from the GE into the KA.
I found that the spiral ramp Activator gives better turnover than the straight vane Activators. A single speed machine without the clutch will be less trouble-prone. Unlike most two speed machines, GE does not use a two speed motor, but uses the clutch to shift the speed from slow to fast so that the motor can provide a constant high speed to the pump for the filtering. The clutch is a part that might be hard to find in the coming years. ABOVE ALL, DO NOT CHANGE THE SPEED SETTING WHILE THE WASHER IS OPERATING. They say that it can be changed from slow to fast, but never the other way while operating. That used to be what service people said. It may or may not be the rule any longer, but don't do anything to risk damage to your classic machine.
About the rust in the outer tub: when you have the top raised, look where the drain hole in the tub is located and level the machine with a slight tilt to that corner to encourage drainage and keep the lid up when the machine is not in use. GE used a gasket between the outer tub and the top of the machine so there is almost no air flow to dry it out like in other top loaders when the top is down. When you find a machine, check for rust under the machine top. That will have to be treated to prevent rusting through.
Best wishes with your quest.