Putting the tent up is easy. It's a single pole design with the pole
being sort of an H shape, or rather >-<
. One end goes
in each corner, giving you a freestanding pole, and then you clip the
tent to the pole. Getting the pole inserted in the corners is a bit tricky,
since once you get the first two ends in the other ends tend to spring
out a bit, but it's fairly straightforward once you get the hang of
it. Although the tent is technically freestanding, as a practical matter you
want to put in at least two stakes—one per side—to pull the
walls of the tent away from your body.
The ground I was camping on was fairly hard and the stakes hard to get in, so I settled for those two and two more
to stake out the vestibule. Also, if you're using the rainfly
you can clip the walls of the tent to the rainfly to tension the walls
even more. This wasn't necessary with one person but with two it would
probably be good to do this or (if you're not using the rainfly) to
guy out the tent walls.
Generally, this tent worked well and was comfortable. My only complaint is that because the tent body is solely mesh, air tended to come up through the vestibule and into the tent, which wasn't that great on a cold night at 8000 feet. I only noticed this effect in the middle of the night so just dealt with it by unstaking the vestibule and lettign it sit against the tent wall, which worked fine. This could probably be ameliorated in a number of better ways, either by carefully staking the vestibule to the ground (this requires getting your stakes pretty much all the way in) or by just sleeping with your feet to the door.
Aside from this issue, I'm happy with the SL2. Also, currently, it's on massive sale at REI for $219, down from $319.
Perhaps I am doing a bit rougher camping than you do, but I am very happy in my Staika from Hilleberg. It's a little heavier but well suited for harsh weather when you really don't want your tent to fail. Most of my camping is done in coasts and mountains.
It's a freestanding design with inner and outer tent (rain fly). They can be raise separately but in most cases you raise them together, which ensures the inner tent is never exposed. Very nice when it's raining heavily.
On the other hand, considering the price that looks like a nice tent for shorter trips and good weather.