soldering irons

[sfr]

Okay, for a while now, (well, since I moved out of my parent's house 5 or 6 years ago) I've been stuck using this soldering iron.  Which, as you can imagine is about as junky as any other Radio Shack product.  Fortunetly, I didn't pay that much for the darn thing, although I do think they talked me into buying some batteries that day.   And whatever address I made up is probably still getting the catalogs (or whatever they use that for)

Anyway, I was at the hardware store today picking up cutting oil, and they had a real good deal on Weller soldering irons, and I had remembered that brand being recommended here before.  They didn't have the solder stations, but they do have the nice soldering pencils - Is it worth it for the top of the line weller stuff?  When I poke around online, I see these are the "consumer" level irons - and opening up my Rat Shack iron, I see the 20 watt/40 watt setting (which was always nice) is reall just a switch wired up with a power resistor - would it be okay to cut the ends off the Weller, and hook it up to this for the dual settings?