Unless you have access to a good hipot tester **STAY AWAY FROM LINE OPERATED DEVICES* It is just that simple. Connecting the ground wire to the motor frame is not safe. I have run across many outlets that are wired backwards or have defective grounding. Even if you run a GFI protected cord that can let enough leakage current into you to kill you before it trips. Run it on batteries and be much safer.
The motor thing, in general I tend to agree that you are best off not pushing a baby carriage with a tank. That is the device should approximate the load. But, if it is just a difference of speed, that should be able to be effectively controlled. This gets back into electronics design, but it is quite easy to figure out the "range" of the speed control you want to be working in and create a circuit with fixed resistors and or a trimpot, and a small value pot for the operator to adjust that will just accommodate that range. If you are building a PWM controller from scratch you can also limit the range in software.
Adjusting stroke is harder in these systems and a bigger concern. I have been pondering this for a while and I think when I build my machine I am going to use a DC motor that drives a wheel with holes in it for different degrees of eccentric so the stroke is set by the eccentric that you are on, and the reciprocation rate is set by the speed of the motor. There are also possibilities for using electronic (lead screw based) linear actuators, but they tend to be expensive and (generally) have low reciprocation rates. Also, I suspect that most of them are not built for continuous duty. Still they may be worth looking at for some aspects of the device. Perhaps setting the overall bias of the stroke or the angle.
I have also been pondering linkages to allow rotation and vibration, as well as heat and perhaps even spurting. And a computer based control system that tries different things and learns what you like, and can also pace a session so it can start out slow and slowly build up.
Sadly I have hundreds of projects in the fire at any given time and this is one of the many. I *do* ponder it, and I *do* have a lot of pieces for it. If you are around the Ithaca, NY area and have an interest in helping to build this or are a female and have an interest in testing this.. Please drop me an IM!!!