I have some experience with commercial widebelts and will say that using them for anything other than a poor man’s planer (which many shops do...), requires a delicate touch of balancing pneumatic pressure, feed rate, etc. My impression of drum sanders (at least from shops I talk to) is that nobody truly loves them. More of a “because I can’t afford a widebelt”-type thing. Just my observation.
Since the Hammer edge sander got brought up in another thread and we’re asking about popularity of drum vs. edge, I will say that the HS950 seems to be selling well here in the States, if that’s any indicator that folks are going for edge sanders.
Erik