If it was ultra-lowend it presumably had limitations on how you could hold the stylus? I deliberately went for a model allowing tilting because I wanted something that was more natural to use.
I tend to work with bezier splines, so it'll be interesting to compare that to drawing them freehand - I am expecting it to take a bit of practice.
I don't currently find mousing a problem for touching up photos, but I do intend to over-use the tablet for (almost) everything at first to get used to it and see if there's surprises to where it works.