I use a glorified on off switch with a 1 foot cord/plug coming out of it, and has 2 grounded outlets coming out of it. It has a larger safety flap that sits on the smaller rocker on off switch, so to turn it on, you lift the safety flap, turn on the rocker switch, then gravity makes the safety flap sit on the switch. The safety flap is larger, and if you hit it intentionally, it will shut off the juice.
The advantage of using this switch is that I hook up a shop vac, and the router to the same switch, since there are 2 grounded switched outlets. It is nice going over the router, clicking on one switch, and both vac and router go on. With a 5hp whisper quiet Sears vac, that has something like a .5 micron filter. Since a router creates very little debris, no use hooking a massive system up to it, to have a 4 or 6 inch system, having to drink through a 2 inch straw for a router. Let alone having to go over and turn it on and off for the big system.
The switch I use is the one that came with a elcheapo Sears router table. They sell it separately for about 20 bucks. It is a plastic housing, and has a double hole side plate that makes it nice for mounting on the side of a router table.
Pertaining to the speed change, get used to going under the table to make a change. Overwhelmingly, the big change is turning it on or off. Changing speeds is far more infrequent.
One last note is that don't even think about buying the TimWhongFo switch from harbor freight for router speeds. I bought one of them, and my router would not go over about 400 rpms. To be fair they gave me a no hassle return/credit on it.
For the infrequent speed changes for the router, your local home and garden department have knee pads, which are hard foam that makes it easy on the knees, and thin enough to ignore, plus they are easy to clean the dust off of. To be honest with you, I never gave an above table speed change a second thought, but you may have a new idea, that there would be a large demand for. Any electronics experts that want to market a new device? What no tip?