I see a ton of table saws with perfect steel faces, precise steel fences, turners to precisely adjust blade height and angle.
I was thinking it is strange that the router tables that I see are really janky. The same factories that make table saws could easily make the same for routers, what is strange is that they didn't or maybe they are just crazy rare. Makes me think I'm doing something wrong.
Don't you think that strange? My motivation is that local wood window places want $3500 per window and 6 months to deliver a replacement (unpainted!) window, and I can make 3 in my driveway in less than 8 hours for < $225 each. The actual hard part of making the windows is the paint which takes me weeks of waiting for the layers to dry.
Looks like path forward is to first try a quality dado blade. If that works I'm set because table saw is great (uh... except the motor is tiny). Otherwise I go the piecemeal approach with a router lift table, like from jessem. Something like this looks perfect:
https://jessem.com/products/09412-mast-r-lift-excel-ii-table-package
Too bad I'm not finding what I want used for $100 and made from 400# of ancient cast iron. I've been looking for years and not stumbling on it.
Thanks for the responses. I still feel like what I want should be much more common.