Bruce,
I bought mine a number of years ago after reading a review of drum sanders by FW. Woodmaster got their top choice outof the bunch tested. Like some of the others have mentioned I too used mine in a full time environment. It is a machine IMHO that's well worth the money and was a great time saver. Good solid American tooling (I assume it's still made in the USA, mine was) and I think you will be well pleased. Even using it full time I had to change the belt only about every 4 months. I didn't have the reversing switch on mine and it does get cumbersome going from front to back to retrieve the stock. If the reversing switch does what it's designed to do (simply sending it back to you) I could see where it would be handy to have.
Robert