As I mentioned yesterday I'll expand my comments on sliders. I work for Ex-Factory and we deal primiarly in used equipment.
As mentioned above the only real drawback to a slider is the floor space required, a 30' x 15' area ensures you can get around the saw on all sides. That is for a full-sized slider. There are several smaller footprint machines on the market. The key to a slider is the "sliding or rolling" table. These vary greatly from one model to the other even within brands especially for GRIZZLY, MINI-MAX, LAGUNA or the multitude FELDER brings in (of course if FELDER makes a bad product I don't know of it.)
One guy mentioned he runs an ALTENDORF at work, they are "inventorys" of sliders and ironically their basic design from 100 yrs ago is still in use some places. About (30) yrs ago though they developed the precision roller and rod system that is in my opinion the most tried and true sliding system. The rollers travel on a rod mounted to the table that is square. If the rollers get damaged or worn you can replace them easily. Other systems consist of bearings in tracks (think accuride drawer slides) or a variation of essentially a groove and roller be it round or v-groove. These methods have performance issues beyond a few years. The roller & rod sliders rarely have issues that are due to improper use. The sliding carriage needs to be cleaned regularly during use which is basically keeping the dust and chips out of the rollers way to prevent premature wear. The carriages will support and carry much more weight that you'll ever need them too. I spent 1/2 the show demonsrating this on our sliding carriage and i'm not a small guy!
The proper use of a slider is still not fully understood in the US. Few folks know you can straightline rip on them as Berhard mentioned casually he's doing. This is primarily because the saws were sold in to panel or sheet good shops and the only blades they ever bought were for cutting panels. These don't do well in solid wood! So folks assumed you can't cut solid wood on the saw. That perception persisted and not much was done to change it until the last few years. I sold them for a year or so and didn't know it.
The safety advantage to a slider is that you are rarely near the blade, and most are equipped with a riving knife and an overarm blade guard. The use of the cross cut fence allows you to make accurate cuts. Attachments to the table such as a concentric clamp allow the operator to not hold the material as it is cut for further safety. These are used mostly if cutting small pieces at an angle. A "quadrant miter guage" allows cutting of panels at angles joining and also for mitering solid wood for frames and the like.
The saw we are bringing in won't work for most of us since is a basic 10-1/2' slider that takes up 30' x 15' which is larger than my garage. The saw is
www.factorynew.com if you want to see what it looks like.
THe aftermarket fence system that jessem came out with a few years ago seems to be the best route if you need a sliding table but have a limited area. There are production quality 5' sliders on the market now geared toward the solid wood market. These are a better fit for most of us but sill take up 15' x 10' or so a big chunck of real estate.
If you have any questions I'll be glad to help you out.
Phil