Like many other people, I am very excited about the new line of customizable bevel down planes from Veritas. I am far from being a neander, but have nearly all of the bevel up planes as well as a few specialized planes from Veritas. I use them where power tools are not the best. For example, recently I have been working on a dining table. During glue up, somewhere in the middle of the top on the down side a thick piece of paper got stuck between tow boards resulting a flawed joint. Of course I did not see it during glue up. I had to rip it back apart after drying using a track saw and then needed to joint these two very wide and long planks. Definitely no doable on my power jointer easily. So, I took out the Veritas bevel up jointer with a fence I bought nearly 8 years ago and easily jointed the two planks to perfection. I am ashamed to say it, but this was the first time I used this particular plane and it certainly earned its keep.
I have read the passionate threads about the virtues of bevel down and the function of the cap iron. There is quite a bit of valuable information in those threads for sure and I really appreciate all the effort being put into the testing and sharing the information. I am a geek myself (engineering PhD background and now in sales and marketing) and enjoyed reading it all.
I also read Rob Lee stating that they did a lot of their own research. So, for those who are trying to decide on which direction to go, what would Rob say about which style to choose and why based on their research? In other words, are the new planes categorically better than the bevel ups or do they just provide another option to people who simply prefer that style and why?
I could have e-mailed Rob about this, I think there may be many other people interested in the topic. Hope it turns into a great discussion.