Well, I went ahead and ordered one up. Was supposed to be ready on the 12th but the lady who runs it called me and got me one built over the weekend. Went and picked it up yesterday.
Sprayed it down with some cooking oil and fired it up. Used about 1/3 of a bag of Matchlight (yeah, I'll go to hell for using it, but I'm ok with it), threw a couple splits on there and let nature run its course. After about 30 minutes, I was still sitting around 150 degrees and started to worry that the issue with heating it up may be true. I threw a couple more splits on and crossed my finger.
I ended up hitting 250 right about 53 minutes in. I got it up to 300 about 10 minutes later (actually, 8, but who's counting). This was in 41 degree weather with rain.
It has been about 2 1/2 hours and I've added one fairly decent size split to the fire. It's been holding pretty close to 250 with the butterfly vents about 3/4 closed and chimney pretty wide open. I have been opening and closing the chamber door a little too much, but it is right around 225 and a nice stream of blue smoke coming out.
So far so good.