I'm in the market for a new jointer. So obviously, I've spent an inordinate amount of time reading up on the options/opinions. Currently I'm waffling between an 8" Powermatic HH parallelogram and Laguna 12" HH parallelogram. Blog after blog, forum upon forum, folks seem to all say bigger is better. But I'm not sure why and what sort of work they are doing that drives this thinking.

I make fine furniture. Tables, beds, boxes, etc. Lots of laminations. In my workflow, I take rough lumber to my jointer to get a clean edge, that then allows me to go to bandsaw for very rough sizing of board width. As a rule, I never use boards wider than 4" to avoid warping and to mitigate seasonal movement. Then back to jointer to face and edge joint before thickness planer for thickness, then I glue up. After I use my drum sander for final flattening and cleaning up. The width I get from the drum sander, I could never get from any jointer.

So I'm left wondering why would I need a jointer wider than 8"? Is there some sort of work that I'm not foreseeing given that I've only been crafting for a few years? Generally, I don't do cabinet work, and even the dressers and cabinets I've made, I've laminated sides, doors, etc. with 3" boards, and couldn't see why I'd go back to the jointer after lamination when I have a 22" wide drum sander. So is that the answer -- the drum sander negates my need for a widest possible jointer? Why get a jointer so much wider than any edge or face width I seem to ever need, given warping and movement concerns?