That still puts the extra safety out of range for us lower-end consumers.Yeah, alas, the $80 is the imaginary price difference that might exist in a world where every saw buyer thought as I do, leading every manufacturer to leap at the chance to license SawStop.
If the premium really were only $80 I might spring for the bandsaw version too, though I've used bandsaws many times and understand what you're saying about the relative danger. I just like being paranoid, when I can afford it. Just because a mistake requires you to be incredibly boneheaded or absent-minded doesn't mean it won't happen.
I can't necessarily blame the SawStop guy for building high-end saws that I'm reluctant to afford. I'm no expert on saw economics, but I find it easy to believe that there's no way to build a viable startup by trying to compete against the likes of Grizzly on price.
I will say, though, that every time I contemplate taking up woodworking without a SawStop saw I run into sentences like this:
I once put all four fingers of my left hand into a dado blade on my table saw due to kickback.
And then I start thinking about all the other hobbies I could be pursuing. Piano! Knitting! Electronics! Machining! (Which, if you do it right, doesn't involve a lot of kickback either. Wear those steel-toed boots, though.)