The half board thing actually depends on your local humidity more than anything. I live in the PNW and when I used half boards my books looked fine for like two years, then one damp winter the bottom edge of every cover started to curl up because there was nothing backing it. Full boards give the whole cover something to press against, so it can't warp when the air gets wet. My buddy in Arizona uses half boards and has zero problems because his air is bone dry. So that dealer wasn't totally wrong, he just didn't explain that it's a climate thing, not a universal rule.

45 seconds to level the base is the part I want to hear more about. Was that on the tripod with the self-leveling doing the work, or did you still have to dial it in by hand because of the slope? And when you say it held through two more picks, held how, did you go back and spot check with the bob at all or just trust the beam? The reason I ask is that swinging bob on a sloped slab tells you the thing is out of level, but it does not tell you how far off, so I am curious if the laser gave you an actual number to work with or just a line you eyeballed. Because if it saved you rechecking points, that sounds less like the laser being magic and more like you finally had one solid reference to measure off of.