For me, Festool helped me out a great deal in organizing my shop. Was I happy at the price of a long rail ? NOPE !!! was I happy at needing to buy the long LR32 holey rail ? REALLY NOPE ! but the long holey is just a few inches too short for the project I was working on, I understand the marketing reason for it...force you to buy 2 rails and it worked.
I found the TS55 REQ to be quite nice, not great but it does its job quite well for me. The 1400 router, is no better than other routers that are half the price but I do really like the ratcheting mechanism on the router collet. I felt I needed the 1400 for the LR32, other routers can be made to work but I didn't want the hassle. Using the 1400 router in non-LR32 mode, worked like any other router. The C18 drill, is nice, but I hate that Centrotec crap, I want to use all my existing bits, so I use the C18 exclusively with the keyless chuck and when the C18 dies, I will go back to standard drill that uses industry standard parts. The MFT/3 table serves its purpose in my shop nicely, nothing to brag about but I like it and would buy it again. The LR32, now that is freaking AWESOME and the Domino, why did I wait so long to buy a Domino, why ? why ?
But what Festool did for me more than anything was organize my shop with the systainers and that was worth the cost of admission for me. I am a auto restorer and woodworker, my garage has 2 modes, car or wood and I don't have enough room to mix the 2 modes. For the last few months its been daily plasma cutting, welding and metal fabrication work, primer is almost down and then it will engine/gearbox time, during this time, my Unisaw is a engine rebuilding bench, my workbench is a sheet metal bench for making patch panels (WAS a rusty car). When my garage is in car mode, I usually can't do any woodworking of any kind, with Festool MFT/3 I can set it up and do a quick project for the wife/house and my Festools reside all neatly organized in their systainers where I can get to them. In a few months when the car is done, I will be back into full woodworking mode (next car has a wood frame under the aluminum body). Festool showed me how wonderful their organization system is and I am working it into sheet metal work as well. Using the Domino and track saw I built a ugly but very functional drawer system to sit under the Metal lathe and Mill to keep all that junk organized, built that in one afternoon so its not pretty but I would never have done it before I got hooked on Festool organization. But you know what ? the "system" is not their tools and I see my future with less Festool tools and more Festool type organization, systainer style stuff.
I said it was nice and that when it breaks I look forward to going to a drill that uses industry standard bits, but I hope it does not break for a long time, its nice.
