I have never used a festool anything. I could afford to try one but until I get a good enough reason, I will keep using my cheaper tools. My favorite sander, I have several, is this Milwaukee:
http://www.amazon.com/Milwaukee-6021-21-Random-Sander-collection/dp/B0012RWCF6
Amazon has it for $60 which is not the lowest price I've seen but it includes shipping. I've owned this sander for several years. I am wrapping up a couple night stands for my son. Before that it was his dresser and before that a complete bedroom set for my daughter. I do not think I used any sander other than this one. The tops of the dressers and nightstands involve glued up panels (oak for son, cherry for daughter) which this 5 inch Milwaukee will handle easily. I switched to using 60 grit to start, however, because I don't like waiting for 100 grit to do the job. That was on my son's stuff, my daughters got nothing rougher than 80 grit. My point is just that if you don't want to wait, add a sanding step and use coarser paper. You have to be careful, however, because it will take wood off fast.
My vacumn is also an inexpensive solution. I use a Rigid with a Hepa filter and a dust deputy pre-separator cyclone. It looks a bit odd but works great. The 5 gallon bucket the cyclone goes into fills but the little 6 gallon vacumn stays near empty. And the air stays noticably cleaner. Sanding used to put dust all over my shop, even with a bag. With the vacumn and good filters, it contributes near zero dust. I bought the dust deputy after reading an article in the recent shops issue of Fine Woodworking. They liked the Bosch shop vacumn the best (because it cleans it's own hepa filter automatically) but recommended adding a preseparator and hepa filter to a normal shop vacumn as a less expensive alternative. They tested the festool and fein and didn't like them as well, I think because of filter clogging.
My vacumn + hepa filter + cyclone was only a little over $100. I'm sure a fein or a Festool would be nice but I don't think they'll do anything my setup won't.
I have a 6 inch DeWalt ROS (looks a bit like a polisher) and a belt sander and an old Rockwell (now PC) speed block. They all work fine but the Milwaukee is my preferred alternative to any of the others. It sands fast and almost without swirls (nearly invisible at 120, invisible by 220).
Jim