I have a 75W Hakko 888 and a Xytronics 80W (75W? I forget) "intelligent PID" soldering iron (part of my rework station). A comparison is useful, because the Xytronics copies the handle quite closely (pretty much exactly, except the connector is reversed) and is designed to take the Hakko tips, and the power rating is the same.
After carefully comparing the two, I could find no major practical difference in actual performance. The Xytronics has the fancy Samsung controller chip in it in my version. And if the heater indicator is to be believed, it heats up quite a bit faster than the Hakko and is "intelligently" switching on/off very rapidly nearly all the time. But in practice, heat up time and performance are identical to the Hakko in any way I can practically observe. I strongly suspect the heater indicator on my Xytronics is just faked (or the gap between heater and tip is insurmountable, making any attempt at useful PID impossible). Once you turn it on, the numbers rise up very linearly and quickly, reaching exact set temp (BING!) way before the tip will even melt solder. Thereafter, the temp reading never, ever changes, and the heater indicator seemingly randomly and rapidly flickers all the time, even when you're holding it against a heat sink that it has no hope of ever reaching set temp. It never stays on or off for any appreciable length of time, which is quite bad PID, if it is actually accurate.
Nitty gritty: I notice the fit of the tip over the heater is grossly loose on mine, but performance doesn't seem to really suffer. The plastic is a little slippery in comparison. I'm not that surprised that the threaded part can eventually break from heat stress. The standby function did not always trip and the stand doesn't hold the iron in the same place. Lots of wiggle/droop.