Well CJ,
I'm not the best guy to ask about warrior play. I can say heavily biased opinions indicate the table is mid range feel, and likely not robust enough for commercial use, but great for home use. I suspect it is quite good and what people say is more a case of criticism from a comfort zone. It is the warrior balls that slow the feel and give that sense of deliberate control...
There is likely a number of compromises made to hit their price point. For instance, it is not a 5/8" or 16 mm rod design meaning your choices are mechanically limited in upgrading rod, handles, and figures unless the bushings are altered / bored out. The handles are a hard plastic and need to be wrapped or they feel icky. The quick change mechanism keeps the table from being secure in public locations. Warrior has a track record of dramatic design changes over time meaning parts could become scarce at some point. But for the price of the table and/or parts all of these are forgiven...
What is awesome is that they sponsor tournaments, bring a good yet affordable table to market that plays well, the removable bars are well suited to apartment dwellers/transport, they have great support / fast shipping, provide cheap 5/8" parts for retrofit projects or repair, and on and on... the figures are very modern in shape and have excellent control and can really soup up an old table to play well when combined with new bearings and nice handles.
I'm not sure a whirlwind is worth chasing... I think you'll get non-counterbalanced figures impeding your defensive zone shots; they are expensive to upgrade. You're better to fish your local craigslist(s) for a tornado coin or cyclone II. Being in the north east I've read brown marbles can be found for under $500, but ya gotta wait a few months for one to pop up and you need to inspect it closely. Since you have a table already, bookmark a craigslist search "tornado foosball" >$300 and check it every day.
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