Good point, I personally tried to use a 1/4 when doing some edges for a walnut pillar I made for a house in Monterey. First couple passes without taking the extra material off, the shank bent, and the bit came loose and shot forward (away from me) and made a nice unsandable dent in a Chris Craft I was restoring. Never made that mistake again.
I think if you're going to be into wood working a lot, a router is invaluable. Maybe purchasing a larger router, with multiple tables, like a plunge, and the like, would be more worth the money later. I'd rather make multiple passes at different widths on a table saw than unbolt the blade and dado it all the time. Plus it helps to have the tablesaw ready to go already to cut your piece, then go to the router, planer etc. This is all just me personally. I do a lot of finish projects and big money boat restorations so I like to have a production line going of seperate tools, since the projects already take so long anyway. But I will say what my dad always told me - "there's no good BRAND of tool, you just hold it, and if it does what it told you to, and the tool respects you, then it will do exactly what you want." So get whichever one you feel more comfortable using, weather it be a dado or a new router setup, etc...