With all respect, Ron ... My router table is exceptionally clean and even relatively quiet. Almost no dust. And way more precise than the old ways. Believe me, I've imported and sold all kinds of Euro hand tools. Many of my own hand tools are vintage 1800's. Good stuff; but I rarely use them. When Festool landed on this continent, it was an "extinction event" for the dinosaurs. I helped launch that asteroid, at least here on the West Coast. I appreciate the Zen mentality of the old ways; but when you need to get it done fast and right and actually profitable ....

I remember a fellow arriving from Dublin with all his mortise chisels looking for work. We were selling huge quantities of expensive mortise locks at that time, along with doors. He boasted he could precisely treat a door for a mortise lock installation in a single day. I told him that was an admirable skill, but unfortunately also had to inform him that I sold machines that would do the same thing in five minutes.

And even one of the fanciest hardwood ULF wet plate cameras I've even seen, along with a gorgeous matching fold-up coating booth, was done almost totally via Festool power tools - that was the stipulation, plus video evidence. It won second place in their first worldwide woodworking contest. No, the ten thousand dollar prize probably didn't even pay for the labor they put into it; but the wide free publicity it brought their cabinet shop was worth far far more. If hand tools were involved, they'd probably still be plugging away at it a decade later.

I have nothing against anchorites and long-bearded hermits honoring tradition and training termites, but it's just not practical for everyone. And what do you think I would have been paid if I had to spend two hours explaining the differences between hand planes to those nice people, and have them just walk away to meditate for another thirty years over it in their cave, when cabinet shop folk were already standing in the same line ready to spend forty thousand dollars apiece?