The folks at Lee Valley are really great Ron, order the smoothing plane that takes the same blades that the jack and jointer take, and compare for yourself. The will take it back if you are not 100% satisfied with the out come.

The real positives are, blade interchangeability, diversity of multiple grain type application, having several blades that have different bevels for different grain types. The blades also come in and out of the plane with little fussing to get them "tuned in." A standard bench plane just does not have this versatility, IMO. Perhaps someone can find a "con" to share...I don't have any, and I own both types of planes.