Hi and welcome. Great question, by the way.
My 2 cents is to make your own table top. I prefer to make it in two layers, a thick chunk of MDF that is very flat, and a top layer of very flat Baltic Birch Plywood. Cut to size, and make it nice and wide so you can add the positioner later. Cut your opening for your router plate (there are many brands, but I prefer aluminum), an inch smaller than the plate, and through both layers. Then use your hand held router with a bit like the one shown to cut the opening for the plate. Some tricks to make that easier: Lay down the plate first and pencil in its outline. Use this to measure the first, smaller opening and cut it out with a jig saw. Then lay the plate back down and position four boards as in the pix below, clamp them in place, then use the router with a bearing to cut the plate opening just 1/8th inch deeper than the thickness of the plate. I'd slip playing cards between the plate and boards to give you a slightly looser fit so you can easily lift the plate and router out
I bought a Woodpecker mounting plate because it is slightly thicker and I have a big, heavy router attached to it. I paid another $10 for their mdf template for cutting the second opening.
You will need to get the plate perfectly level with the top surface, and Kreg makes a nifty leveler as shown in the picture. It is possible to just drill holes for screws to go up, through the MDF and ply, then round off the tip of the screw where it touches the plate. I prefer the commercial levelers which are pretty cheap for a set of four. If the plate is too high, the end of the workpiece can drop and your cut won't be straight, too low and the workpiece can catch on the edge, messing up your cut.
When you work on a table, the finished side goes DOWN, when working with a handheld router, the finished side goes up.
For a fence, some more of the BB ply. I prefer a taller fence so you can more easily cut the ends of your stiles (top, bottom) on your doors. This can be very simple and attached to a second board at right angle (exactly 90 degrees to the table surface). This also facilitates a method of working shown on the video link.
You can mount this top on a cabinet. Hint, make all your tool heights the same. My shop is small so I can use my workbench and the router table as infeed surfaces for my table saw. As you add tools, this same height will be very useful.
Method of work: Of all the videos I've watched, the most useful for using a router table is a series on YouTube by Marc Sommerfeld. He sells router tools and features his bits and table, but he was a cabinet maker before he started the router tools and bits business. Here is a starting link to all his videos:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=marc+sommerfeld+videos. I bought all his videos on disks and watch the appropriate one when starting a router project. His methods are simple, accurate and very direct. You don't have to buy a lot of stuff to produce great stuff, and note his use of chunks of MDF as push blocks that prevent tearing out at the end of cuts.
I'll post a little on sawdust collection without breaking the bank in another post.
You mentioned dovetails. With a table you can use one of the new dovetailing jigs and not suffer through learning to set up all the variants on the old Porter Cable design. There are several brands. I have the Sommerfeld one, but Leigh makes a wonderful one that you can get in either the 12 or 24 inch version. The difference between the PC and Leigh/Sommerfeld type is with the PC, you move the router over the wood, the other you move the wood and the jig over a fixed router. In my experience, the second is far easier to set up. There are lots of videos and I like the Sommerfeld video which includes a lot on how to avoid screwing up work pieces.
Whenever you make a face frame or rails and stiles using rough cut wood, you will be doing jointing and planing to get truly flat, same thickness boards to work with. ALWAYS make extras because if you are human, you will screw something up, and you'll need test pieces to set up your bits. If you do this process, try to use it fairly quickly because some wood will begin twisting and warping pretty darn fast.
On matched bit sets: This means on door sets, all the shanks or shafts, are exactly the same length, this means you set the first bit up and all the others can simply be dropped in and will match up with your previous cuts. Sommerfeld made the sets I own, but you can also order them from Freud, either way, Sommerfeld has a very handy star shaped jig for setting up the bits. They also make one for Freud bits sets. What makes them great is you can set them for the thickness of your workpiece. That will eliminate some of your trial and error waste. Yellow star in pix, red for Freud.