The iron seems decent enough. If you you are going to use lead-free solder, pay heed to their warning and get the other iron for a little more. Also, think about getting the hot tweezers option to remove parts with. You may not be doing surface mount now, but it's nice to use these on two-pin thru hole parts. Tap the board lightly upside down while heating both leads at once. Works like a charm if the tweezer tips are clean and tinned. Then it's a simple matter of sucking the solder out of the now unpopulated holes.
Yeah, most desoldering is straightforward and can easily be done with braid or a sucker. Been there, done that, wanna see the scars? But when you have to remove an IC or resistor pack with several pins soldered to heavy traces or power buses, a powered desoldering unit is invaluable. I have a Xytronics unit, I talked my employer into getting one also. Works just fine. Less expensive than a Hakko, which is one of the Cadillacs of the field.
Ditch the sponge and get one of those tip cleaners using curly brass. Using a wet sponge greatly reduces the heat at the tip just when you need it. We love 'em.
Also, use organic solder. Cleans off with distilled water easily. We run hot tap water over the job while swishing with a soft brush (acid brush is OK), then rinse off with distilled water to get rid of mineral residue from the tap water. Of course you can use no-clean flux. I just can't stand to see the left overs. Makes me feel like the board has been left "infested". Personal pref. Cleans off with alcohol, though.
Oh, yeah, speaking of which, get some inexpensive applicator bottles with long, fine tips for applying alcohol, flux, distilled water... whatever. And various sizes of braid.
Back to work!
kenjj