A friend just off-loaded on me an old 4 inch "precision" jointer: A
Delta Homecraft, mfg is Rockwell, etc. It's on top of a rather ugly
stand, sans motor, and the jointer would need a lot of cleaning, much
less tweaking and blade sharpening and so forth.

AFAIK, a jointer has no other purpose than creating a square edge on
boards that need to be seamlessly joined, as in a table top or the like.
In short, a jointer is not a multi-tasker that can be used for a variety
of different tasks, correct? I've little enough space as it is and a
seldom used single-tasker is not useful to me.

I have done some pretty square edges on a table saw, and with a router
on one occasion (using a straight-edge as a guide). Is there any good
reason for having a jointer, especially the one I described, lurking the
the corner of my shop? What am I missing here?

Thanks for any/all advice.

Longfellow