Well, from a carpal tunnel point of view I'd stick with the pencil scan...you can never really beat that in my opinion. Once you develop some proficiency with a tablet it's just as good and saves you from having to scan things in and adjust the contrast...more of a time-saver kind of thing there. With the vast amount of custom brushes available for the software there are countless things that you can do with a tablet that you cannot do by hand. So I'd say, get one and be sure to take the time and force yourself to get used to it (they can be kind of quirky at first).