Was he looking for hot air desoldering?
I have an Aoyue 701A++ soldering/vacuum desoldering station
https://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-Function-Soldering-Desoldering-Absorber/dp/B009Q5ZH58
Aoyue is total Chinese knockoff of Hakko but the soldering iron is good. I do a lot of soldering and the smoke absorber is very nice to avoid breathing in fumes but it can get in the way on certain tasks.
The desoldering side is weaker but still very functional for volume desoldering and vastly superior to a manual sucker. The pump is lower quality than a Hakko but since it is in the main unit the Aoyue gun is significantly more compact than the Hakko or Denon hand held units. I've owned mine for 3 years without any problems. I also have Aoyue hot air (that I don't like) and Hakko hot air stations.
If you do get the Aoyue, pcb-soldering in the UK is a lot cheaper for parts than the US distributor. I just bought a set of 6 tips for $20 shipped from UK.
For the $185 shipped price you'll struggle to do better. For hobbyist use I question the statement that you need to double your budget to get something "decent" but noone was ever fired for buying IBM.