I've got three main sanders myself. A B&D ro palm sander, a B&D made Sears large ro&linear sander, and a B&D made Sears belt sander. I used the belt and palm sander. Nothing beats a belt sander for removing large quantities of material. Which can also be quite a drawback when it comes to "oops".

The model palm sander I don't currently remember, but I can look it up tonight. We used them all the time at the test lab. I don't know how many hours they can actually go, but I can tell you in the years I worked there, we never burned a single one of them out in any of the testing series we would conduct. Where the poor little sanders would be running for around 8 hours a day for days on end. Mine was liberated from inventory after a large sand paper test was completed.

I agree with the others about vacuum. But not just for convenience. You will sand faster with vacuum, and your sand paper will last longer as well. Without it, you are instead sanding dust particals, which are then sanding the wood or epoxy. That's why without vacuum you've got to keep blowing dust off and slapping the paper to knock out the clogging dust.

I personally like palm sanders now. I sneered at them prior to actually getting around to using one. Believing that they must be toys, and real men used big clunky sanders. Then, using them, I was converted. A palm sander sure is easier to control and a lot less hard on you. It may not actually remove quite as much material second by second as compared to a large sander, but I can run a whole lot more seconds without exhaustion using a palm sander then any other sander.