oh goodness....well, almost every brand has some king of sliding compound mitre saw. here in seattle at least, they are the industry standard. being a career carpenter specializing in top end residential finish carpentry, i have been on lots of jobs. the hitachi 8 1/2 in is the one i see the most of. having tested all of the proffessional grade saws out there, i agree that it has superior fit and finish, with a thick kerf saw blade it is reliable for production, perfection quality cutting of all kinds. that is why it is pretty much the industry standard chot saw for finish carpenter. crosscutting of some pretty wide materials is possible by drawing aling line across the board and flipping the piece to finish the cut. my favorite advantage of a slide say is that you can actually draw the blade across the board to see where it is going to cut. that is especially convient for cuts that need to be at a certain angle other than square. you are allowed mulltiple passes, and to control the direction of the teeth during your cut as to minimize tear out. you can rip shim pacs with it by CAREFULLY flipping a board over everytime after a cut almost the way through at oh say ..5 degrees. some saws flip over, mine dosent, but most others do, i have used the bosch 10 in, and i like it it is more durable than the rest the hitachi 10 in feels good, but the blade is just too big for me to feel comfortable with. I use a 10 non slide sar for very few things....makes a good back up for cutting 4x4's and that is about it, sometimes comes in handy, but the wobble in 12 in blades is really annoying when doing ultra fine work. if i had to pick, id take a slide saw every time,

there is my opinion, i hope it is helpfull
~M