I am a fan of the Weller digital station; I have a WESD51 and like it a great deal. It heats up extremely fast and the temperature is both accurate and stable. The tips are interchangeable so you can have several for different purposes; I like a small, fine-point tip for board work, but something materially larger for soldering coil lugs and similar. The iron cord is a silicone material and resistant to heat damage (which does happen due to accidents) and finally the pencil is replaceable at a reasonable cost (about $40) if you DO damage it (or the heater burns out.)

I had a digital Radio Shack one for a long time and it worked perfectly well for many years, BUT the cord fell apart (literally) on the iron and they had changed the model -- so no more replacement irons!

The reason you buy the Weller or similar is because the pencil portion IS a consumable; the heater will eventually fail, and if it doesn't the CORD will fail. When it does you can either buy a $30 replacement or you can buy a new $100+ soldering station. Which do you prefer?

I tend to run hotter but it's a technique thing -- the intent of hotter is to be on the device for a shorter amount of time, thus less heat transfer to whatever is being soldered, but it only works if you ARE on for a shorter amount of time!

Yeah, you can use darn near anything for coil lugs and such (e.g. playfield wiring) with good results. The trick there is to have a larger tip as you need to transfer more heat quickly, and have the room.

For board work -- especially board work on newer boards (e.g. WPC) a fine tip and heat control is important. For *really* fine board work or anything where surface-mount components are involved nothing beats a hot-air station if you'd like to accomplish the job without destroying things (yes, I have one.)

Yes, easily. I use it to do things like replace the tiny little switches on cellphones (which fail all the time, and are a buck or two -- but changing them is very precise work, and without a hot air station you can forget about it.)