I'm getting in on this a little late.
I figured I'd chime in with a couple points.
I didn't get a Aoyue station, but rather bought a used Hakko off eBay. It was just the "central headquarters" though and didn't have any wands or wires. I took a chance and hoped that I could find this stuff over a future span of time. The Hakko wands are nice I know, but even those are pretty high. I did run across a site here in the US that sells Aoyue stuff including parts. I bought two soldering wands and one desoldering gun. After I got to handle them I think they do have a good feel and are almost identical to Hakko. Pretty good clone job.
However, it didn't have the same connector, so in the process of dissecting to fix that I found that there wasn't any temperature sensors in either the soldering or desoldering heater elements! This may have been an odd batch or something and yours may be better, but it might be worth checking out just so you know what you're working with.
The good news is that Genuine Hakko heating elements fit both the soldering and desoldering guns OK, though I think I had to buy a couple other tip parts on the desoldering gun for it to work right due to a variation in length. Still, those parts weren't too expensive even from Hakko. IMPORTANT NOTE though: If you have an Aoyue rig, buying Hakko parts likely won't do you any good. I had to buy Hakko elements so it would work with my Hakko base station and fortunately it fit the Aoyue handles.
Otherwise the Aoyue stuff seems well made especially for the price. For a hobbyist I can't see a guy spending north of $1K for a soldering rig unless you are pretty wealthy and money doesn't matter. For a hobbyist I think Aoyue stuff is a pretty decent solution IMO. I have a Hakko now and it IS really sweet, but it took a fair bit of chasing things down to put it together.
Here's a link to previous ramblings about my Hakko 703B Frankenstation:
http://aussiepinball.com/index.php?topic=136.msg3557#msg3557
