Geez Van, sounds complicated

Personally I'm pretty sold on the belt tensioning system the 18-900L has compared to the older "move the motor" style. It just plain works really well (you do have to be careful to get the belts aligned properly, but that's not a big deal). It sort takes the edge off of not having all of the fancy shmazzle Van's talking about

The quill stops are also very nice as is the depth guide on the handle (ok its not 100% accurate, but its handy as heck).

Get the fence, its nice, no need (imho) to add another table on top (at least I haven't seen a reason).

Haven't had the light turning itself on problem (knock wood!)

Mine measured 0.001 runout retracted and 0.003 runout fully extended which - imho - is fantastic.

I managed to assemble it myself without a shop crane (but I'm really stubborn - that head is HEAVY, not recommended).