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I have the Festool one. It's a beast. Not sure about the others but it opens up the possibility of polishing stuff if you use felt or sheepskin pads. It's an aggressive sander which can remove a lot of material but it's heavy.
I use an LS130 (Linear sander) for wood that needs a stained or varnish finish. Otherwise I can never get rid of the damage from random orbit sanders. I think it's important to go with the grain for that kind of finishing.
If you are not going to polish paint finishes it might not be worth having the rotary function.
Thought I should clarify that you can also polish paint finishes in the really fine grits with specialised pads 1000,4000 grit etc. The Felt and sheepskin pads are useful for finishing with polish or polishing the car etc.
Airhead-
Good to know. I've never done much proper fine finishing, and my knowledge of sanding is pretty basic as a result (which feels quite embarrassing considering how long I've been making things out of wood for my job).
Realistically I shouldn't be dropping £300 on a sander right now, but the prospect of buying something, only to need something different in a year or twos time is always on my mind. I've never really regretted buying expensive tools, and I've always cursed myself when I've cheaped out. That being said, buying a Makita sander for £100 isn't going to be a waste.
CSB I know. I'm shit at buying tools, too indecisive!
Nef
More tool chat. Having read up more about sanding floors/sanders is it worth spending the extra to get a geared sander- IE one that has rotational sanding as well as random orbit?
Main options are the Makita BO6050, Bosch GET75 and the Festool (too spendy for me!). The Makita gets average reviews, and the Bosch really good reviews, but am I just being daft throwing an extra £200 at it? Typing this out I feel like I know the answer, but value the DIY thread hivemind's input.