I too just don't get why bromine is considered difficult, but its true that the retail market has contributed to this misconception. Some prefer the odor over chlorine; some find allergies to one vs the other, so its a personal choice. Here are some bromine myths
1. bromine is incompatible with "dichlor then switch to bleach". I'm following exactly the same procedure with bromine as I do with chlorine, except that on start-up I add bromide salts. I set aside the amount of dichlor that represents the target CYA and i just use that as the oxidizer to accomplish the conversion to bromine. when the dichlor is used up I switch to bleach as the oxidizer that converts bromide salts to bromine. There are some really cool and fancy names for this method but I just call it "dichlor switch to bleach" because thats what it is. one could argue that CYA isn't needed in a bromine spa at all, which suggests that one could use bleach as the oxidizer from startup, but to be safe I wouldn't do it. I'm just not a chemist so I can't prove it.
2. MPS is preferred or otherwise associated with bromine. One can certainly use MPS in a bromine spa (I have) but its "non chlorine" attractiveness is actually more prominent in a chlorine spa because in a chlorine spa it oxidizes contaminants as MPS. In a bromine spa it's primary action is to convert bromide salts to bromine. There is a small benefit before the conversion to bromine is complete, but beyond that, the use of MPS isn't that much different from chlorine as the oxidizer -- the end result is still bromine
3. Bromine is more difficult than chlorine. I just don't get this. add bromide salts at startup, and everything else is the same. no floater, no magic . exactly the same as "dichlor then switch to bleach"
the non-myth advantage of bromine is that with ozone in place the sanitizer decay rate is measurably better/lower and asymptotically approaches zero as time passes! that means under ideal conditions bromine never goes to zero. this means, unless you have biofilms eating your sanitizer, you can leave for days. I have personally done this, and measured .5 to 1ppm bromine after several days, although I will emphasize that this does take a very clean/purged spa and most spas won't perform this way unless regularly purged with ahhsome.
The only disadvantage of bromine I have found is that when you have ozone and clean spa and you shock, it can take days before the bromine level calms back down so you can get in! ... and Hydrogen peroxide can't be used to neutralize it!
Ozone generators do wear out, but if you are using ozone for its ozone effectiveness -- you'll get more mileage out of a bromine spa. ozone and bromine is a beautiful thing and when the ozone generator wears out -- replace it! in fact, the bromine decay rate can be used to measure ozone effectiveness!
some things that make bromine difficult
1. floaters. to each his own but i just don't see the advantage. never had a bromine floater
2. "brominating concentrate" this is just a mixture of dichlor and sodium bromide. you can use it in a pinch, but at startup you won't have a bromine spa you will have a partial bromine spa. I'd rather put the sodium bromide in myself and choose dichlor for the oxidizer