I have yet to find a better shot than I can make on this.

I have no Idea how cumbersome you think it is. It's as manual as it gets short of growing the beans myself.

You figure out a system pretty quick. I put the head on the kettle so it preheats with the steam. Then I grind place and tamp. Put the head and a shot pulls with a simple arm bar in 30 to 45s. 10 mins prep. 2 mins clean up and put it all away.

Very travel friendly setup.

What I love about it is that you can manually control everything to a very high degree. It rewards tinkering. The quality is exceptional once you dial everything in.

What I don't love about this particular flair is the undersized basket makes undersized shots. The flair 58 solves this, but I like the gift I got enough to not bother upgrading. I bought a spare head to facilitate pulling back to back shots.

I use a Fresh Roast. Works super well.

I tuck it into a cupboard after use.

I have a small kitchen, and a flair, so mine lives in a small cupboard with all its attendant accoutrements. It’s very quick to get out and put away though, there’s almost no extra steps to keeping it like that

Depends on your countertop real estate but a Flair has a much smaller footprint than any regular espresso machine.