I don't find it romantic, either Dave. I didn't have much of a choice when I first started, unless you count running a generator a choice. You can outfit yourself for under $1000 and have a sweet selection of hand tools to work with. What does a chain mortiser run, $5000? That is just the morticer.

Are you saying it took longer with power tool, to cut the trestles?

Yes, 50% longer. I don't know why, the other guy is very competent with power tools. The SwissPro is at least $5k, puss extra bar and chain sets. We have the big bandsaw, planer and chainsaw contraption, over $20k worth of stuff. You can buy a hydraulic sawmill for that.

You can buy 3 Makitas for the price of a Swiss Pro or Mafell. I don't see what is wrong with a Makita.

The idea of a chain mortiser is speed. The cross grain mortisers are way faster and easier to use. Set the fence, plunge the left end, then the right end, and hog the middle.

I think that DL Bahler stated my own position very nicely.
While I admittedly do not feel the same affection for my power tools as I do for my hand tools, I respect them as important additions. (Although I do have a 100 year old Crescent bandsaw, that makes my heart skip whenever I walk past it!)
In my shop all the roughing work is done by circular saw, mortiser and router. All the clean up is done by chisel, slick and plane. It ends up pretty balanced between the two.
I feel from my experience that with an intelligent mix of the old and new; combined with proper workflow and procedures, gives the best overall efficiency and value. A little while ago I cut and assembled three king post trusses spanning 28' in about 24 hours. All the joinery was fully housed, drawbored, and the joinery was dollar bill tight with no slop in the mortises. I really don't see how I could replicate that with hand tools alone.
It is completely possible that I haven't acquired the proficiency in hand tools to be able to see their fullest potential. It is something that I would be very interested in. Believe me, if I could buy a bunch over Miller's Falls boring machines and make the switch I would do so in a heartbeat!
This is an interesting topic, and one I have been curious about for some time.

Are you saying that you couldn't replicate the accuracy with hand tools? That is surprising to me. I find they are much more accurate than a circ saw gone wild. Even new Makita saws (8 1/4") won't cut square. Maybe other brands are more reliable.

I think it was mentioned above, but there are some areas where hand tools really shine over the power tools, and that is on hewn, scribed wonky stuff. I can shim a boring machine in a couple of seconds and go to town. That's a lot harder with a mortiser that wants to pull itself to a corner to maintain registration, and that corner may not be remotely square.

Dave, you guys must have been standing around goo gooing over the power tool and not spending time cutting wood.

Yes, another point, when plumb line scribing you have mortises that may be skewed and shoulder cuts that are not square, a hand saw makes a nice cut that needs no chasing with a chisel. And no or fewer time consuming housings and reductions.

Another aspect to hand tools vs power is the safety factor. There is alway a chance of slicing some flesh but skill saw kick back is never a pleasant thing.

If I was to make the jump to a chain mortiser I would take on the cross grain version. The Makita is not where I would want to be if I made the switch. Cost be damned.

Back to the romanticism, being valentine's day and all, I think it is the intrinsic aspect of power tools that some men lean toward.

There is a fatigue issue as well, especially for me. Listening to power tools all day, even with ear protection, really can wear you down. Fine dust blowing around is also bad news.

Not that accuracy is the problem, but speed. I know that a beam borer with a good sharp bit will bore surprisingly quickly through quality timber, but I really don't know that I could match the speed of a German mortiser. That may be because I don't know all the "tricks". What do you find to be your most expediting techniques with a beam borer?
And yes, there is no comparison between the speed of a cross grain mortiser and the Makita. I would say the Germans are two to three times as fast. I still like my Makita to take to jobsites though.

I've used a Mafell and yes it is faster. I don't really concern myself with speed, if I did I wouldn't be timber framing. The Mafell is also a lot lighter than the Makita. I'm just saying that the Makita does what you need it to do for a lot less money. I also mainly use planed timbers.