Thanks for the feedback. We've been looking on and off for a while, and went to the spring home & garden show. I'm always skeptical of buying at an event like that. It's the old, 'we had 10 at this show price, and I have 2 left' pitch (or, if the price is as good as you say, maybe in this case they really do). 'In any case, they asked for a $500 deposit to hold it- fully refundable if we change our mind within 2 weeks. Then we can go wet test and see how we like it compared to the HS we're thinking about.
Is it common for dealers to cut corners on the cover quality, lifter, etc... on a deal like this? I don't know a lot about those components yet... I'm kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop- like, 'oh, by the way, you'll surely want to upgrade to our premium lifter system for an extra $bzillion.