I just went through this myself and ended up buying the MTH Z-1000 for $129. AT that price, the power pack was a significant percentage of the cost of a starter set. The Z-1000 provides more than enough power to the track as well as fixed accessory power at 14v, which was exactly what I needed to resolve the type of issues you described. It also obviously supports conventional operation, which I didn't have.
The Lionel DC wall wart pack had its benefits for newbies, even over the Z-1000:
- Super affordable
- Extremely small and light
- Simple disconnection of track power via barrel plug
- No screw terminals/no soldering
- No need to reset circuit breakers
- Very quick and intuitive to set up and operate
- No "control panel" - everything was on the wall outlet or on the bluetooth controller
- No wires/no busses/no different voltages - all power ran through the Fastrack
- Power light was on the track
- Enough power to run two engines through a 4x8 layout with very modest accessories
The issue as I see it is that the newbie will buy a few upgrades and not understand why their stuff fails to work. There ought to be some sort of idiot light in the Fastrack for "Need to upgrade power pack".