I visually like all of the commercial ways people have shown to hinge the handle compared to my very cheap (under $5 modification, free if you have a box of random hardware around the house, post #141 of this thread).
What I am concerned about his how well some of these will hold up if you really have to pull on the handle hard, like when you are moving over a high threshold and you can easily jerk with 100 lb of force. I would worry the metal in the hinge would shatter.
I would agree that the 1,000 lb lift table is way to heavy if you ever plan on traveling with it. The 500 lb lift table is already a PIA to lift into a car and transport. I have always looked at the 500 lb model to see if I could cut down the weight (I think the bottle jack is a lot of the excess weight). I really like taking it with me to buy pins, it lets me easily pull legs, move, and load into a car. With one of these tables and a dolly I can move a pin by myself, which is often critical when I am buying a single pin from a random owner who is unable to help with the move (or you don't want them to help).
If you need the table to lift higher just put something on the table to fill in gap between the bottom of the pin and the lift table to get extra height. I recall using two plastic milk crates next to each other with good success when I had to load into a 4x4 truck.