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Yes, you're right; I think in most places in the U.S., they don't enunciate the T. But I remember when I brought up that I liked Etta but I worried that it would get confused with Edda, which sounded the same, people kept telling me on here it sounded different when they said it, as well as my friend who was raised in suburbs. But my point is that Marita sounds especially unattractive in our accent, not because of the T, but when I switch to a more "suburban" accent, the t has a softer sound to it somehow.

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And yep, the most defining characteristic is the nagging emphasis on vowels in the Philadelphia accent, like you mentioned with the A sound, which I think is why Darlene doesn't sound very good with it. I took a history of Philadelphia course and the professor pointed out like an almost an urgent whining sound to it. Not as fast as New York, but very straight forward and insisting.