Astrotrac ramblings... AZ3 instead of photo tripod and geared head?

[Dodge]

I miss my old Astrotrac Travel System. It wasn't exactly grab and go, and I always struggled a bit with focal lengths longer than 300mm which for me means camera lenses only. That pretty much made the pier, wedge etc. a bit excessive and I sold it.

I want another at some point, and I'm thinking something a long the lines of the holiday special. I have the Manfrotto tripod and ballhead already, but the geared head is a lot of money, and I'm debating whether to ditch the tripod for something like an AZ3 - with the slow motion controls it ought to make polar alignment easy, and hanging an Astrotrac, camera and lens really ought to be within it's load capacity.

I could even buy something like the Mercury 705/AZ3 combo (strangely, cheaper than the AZ3 on it's own) and gain a guidescope too.

Good or bad idea?