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Yes it is a soldering station, looking for one of those as well to accompany the 474++ desoldering station ;)
 
I use a 22 year old Hakko 926 and am really happy with it. No experience with their newer models, but the FX888D looks great for the price.
 
For a soldering iron, I use a Hakko 936 I ordered from Japan a few years back. I recently had to replace the front electronics, but I think that was the exception more than the rule - I know people that have been using that iron daily for 20 years without a hitch. Besides, at $12 for a factory new replacement part, I wasn't exactly put off by the experience. For SMD work, I picked up a cheap Gordak 962 for $63 shipped. I wasn't expecting to win the bid. It's serviceable for my needs - I do mainly through hole stuff. This also serves as my back-up iron, as it's basically a Hakko 936 clone with a hot air station tacked on - it also uses Hakko parts and tips, so replacements are easy.

For desoldering, I normally use a Soldapullt sucker. I've done 128-pin CPUs with no real problems. With that said, I also have the Velleman tool that was linked by the OP - it's a good tool, and I pull it out when I need. I haven't had issues with it clogging, but I have had several issues with it not being thermally conductive enough to melt the solder properly. That said, though my experience is limited, it's by far the best one-handed tool that I've used, and I know guys that do vintage PC motherboard repairs for a living that absolutely swear by that particular unit, and they also have several different industrial/professional solder suckers.
 
This is the best soldering tutorial I know of for beginners; if you understand the science happening your worksmanship will be much better than most. The link to my recommended tool is in the first post.

I'd like to piggyback on Skate's post by also pointing to PACE's full line of instructional videos they provide via their own hosted playlist on youtube; really good training:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL926EC0F1F93C1837
 
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