Consumer Complexity

I just want to buy a soldering iron to assemble my birthday present. I honestly had no idea how many different variations on a soldering iron were available for purchase. It's all so confusing. Temperature control? Wattage control? Digital rework stations? I know nuts and bolts and steel and machining, not electronics. The electronics are handed off to some other guy to handle. What's a poor mechanical type to do?

Actually, in this case I went and solicited advice from the sparkies and the folks at the Make forums. I'm leaning towards a digital temperature controlled station. This ought to give me enough to work with while I destroy some things on the way to learning how to solder well enough to assemble my clock.