Even the cheapest SDS drill will comprehensively outbore just about anything with a pair of waffle discs (st'd. hammer drill). I too hate hammer drills. Where possible these days I prefer to buy dedicated cordless & corded drills without hammer settings, and use cordless & corded SDS + & SDS Max drills for boring, chiselling, chasing & breaking up the hard stuff. All appropriately sized to the particular task at hand.
A big hammer will also make light work of asphalt, hard foundation digging, breaking new ground in the garden etc. The only thing that holds them back is solid rock. You'll require even more brute force for that, esp. in such denser types as dolerite & basalt, etc.
A few years back I had to do some major demolition/renovation work in an old series of student residential blocks. Mostly surface mount stuff using Hilti plugs. in 7 x 3 storey buildings over about a year. Apart from the bigger access holes, chasing etc there were about 30,000 odd plugs used: 5mm x 25mm (25/127" x 125/127"). All in poured & suspended slab concrete floors, ceilings & structural concrete brick to a depth of about 1 23/127". The holes would only take about 5 seconds or so to bore with the littlest 18v Bosch SDS drill using Hilti CX bits. Apart from the speed and ease, I find that the little SDS battery drills are every bit as small & light as any other Li-powered cordless drill, and so much quieter and better shaped (handle @ the rear, motor @ 90 degrees to the axial conrod & piston assemblies) that it makes one handed operation simple, safe and straightforward, even at the top of a ladder or reaching into less accessible areas. Having suffered most of my life from carpal tunnel, it would be impossible for me to sustain the long-term pressure required for hammer drilling, whereas the speed & relative lack of noise or vibration from a quality drill & bit package allowed me to bore, core, drill & chase for several hours per day without exacerbating my symptoms. In all I ended up using a total of 9 my own different hammers on the job, plus a few that were initially borrowed too off & on, but soon settled for a "core" fleet of 3 to cover most all the tasks required.
One thing that was immediately noticeable was that the manufacturers' quoted capacities for each tool are wildly exaggerated: small hammers will only bore the very biggest holes slowly & laboriously. Big hammers will be awkward for smaller holes too, although both bigger & smaller holes are quoted as within the tool's capabilities. More honest manufacturers often list an additional secondary (much "narrower") set of upper & lower capacities that it's BEST suited to. This maximises speed & efficiency, allowing for minimal bit exchange & the optimum work flow, whilst (eventually) only using 1 main & 2 secondary bit sizes, one chasing gouge and one TCT mortar chisel.
I tend to treat my drills as precision tools, and the rotary hammers as more brute force type tools. I've always considered Robert Bosch hammers to be the creme de la creme. Biggest range, best performers. Likewise, I regard Hilti CX bits the best for SDS, and any of the German bits made by Hawera (Bosch, Metabo, Kango, Elu, DeWalt, Makita, Milwaukee et al.) the best SDS Max bits.
