This year my father was kind enough to give me a thickness planer for Christmas (Porter-Cable PC305TP). It is the first planer I have had and there is something I have never given much thought. In the instruction manual it says that a jointer should be used before running a board through the planer. Since I have not gotten into purchasing rough boards, is that going to be necessary? As long as the boards have no serious defects (badly warped, bowed, etc) it should really be an issue.

Looked at hand planes . . . aside from the learning curve, a power jointer would be less expensive from the ones I looked at (outside of refurbishing legacy planes). My father offered to give me his 6" jointer if I wanted, he says he has not used it as much as he thought he would (he has been woodworking since high school in the 1950's) so he wouldn't miss it much.

What are your thoughts as more serious wood workers to a hobbyist?