I'm actually picking one of these up this weekend. I don't have the headroom for the 10' column either, put I've found posts that say you can cut the column, and just have to trim some cables to get it to work. I'll probably trim mine down to around 7'.
I was initially purchasing a 10x10 HK mural enlarger for $200 from a lab in NYC that was trying to clean out some room. I had agreed to purchase it, but the guy ended up not being able to locate the head for it, so he offered me the Fotar instead for the same price.