I used one (a newer model) for a couple of years when my lawn was smaller than it is now. My advice: mow more often.
Push mowers work great if you're serious enough about your lawn to mow every four days (which is recommended around here mid season) but if you slack off and let it get too shaggy they are pretty useless.
The other downside is that they don't collect clippings for you. I live in a soggy part of the country where failing to bag your clippings in the early spring tends to lead to moss and fungus problems. It's fine, even helpful, to mulch them in place later in the year.
I'm pretty sure that this moment, right here, is the start of my midlife crisis. I just wrote an entire internet post about lawn care, officially completing my transformation into Suburban Dad.
