Considering Getting a Pressure Cooker

I've periodically considered getting a pressure cooker, have read the Chow threads and various online reviews, etc. Recently saw a Good Eats episode in which Alton Brown cooked a stewing chicken in a PC for chicken and dumplings, and I've renewed my thinking more seriously. But I still wonder about two kinds of things:

1. Can anyone give me some concrete stories to illustrate what a PC actually allows you to do, beyond saving time? How practically useful is it for someone like me, who has several days a week when I am not in a time rush before dinner?

2. For equipment, it really seems to come down to a Fagor model at about $100 or a Kuhn Rikon at about $200. I'd get the more expensive one if I learned something about how it was actually better. By the way, threads here suggest that the PC maven at missvickie.com is mucho disappointed with Cooks Illustrated's review of this type of equipment some time ago (no longer on their website), a review that, to judge by her comments, was basically incompetent. She does like the Fagor that they recommend, but she feels that they basically didn't even figure out how to work the Kuhn Rikon properly at all (her own overall favorite brand).

Thanks!