I have a 4-ft.-by-8-ft. table I built for my game room. The surface has the postersized grid paper (1" squares) on it laid side by side (there are six sheets in all) and then 1/4" plexiglass laid over and held in place with screws/nuts. We can draw some really, really big encounter areas on it with vis a vis erasable ink markers. We keep a squirt bottle and rag handy to erase when needed. The table itself is large enough for six big fellas to sit around it comfortably and it's set a bit lower than your standard table so that you have a bit of a look-down angle going on to make viewing the game table from a sitting position a bit easier.
I have almost the same setup, except I was really dumb and draw the lines with a framing square and a pencil. It took forever and doesn't look all that good. I am going to probably repaint it white and buy one of those big pads like you have done, but the only ones I can find are really hard to see the gridlines. The beauty of plexi is you can write on it with purple vis-a-vis and it won't stain. I also use dry erase for some things (effect countdowns, etc)
I like your idea of a lower table, mine is a bit on the high side, but I was planning on adding drawers to give the players a place to put their char sheet and books. If I don't do that I could lower my table by about 3 inches.
I have a picture of it at my website (http://www.zackfamily.com) before I painted it and drew the gridlines. I need to update that page :)
We have a large grid-square battlemap, but we almost always use Dundjinni maps and then colored beads for the characters and NPC's.
Dundjinni, by the way, is quite awesome.
I use Dungeon tiles and GameMastery map packs, with D&D minis for characters and enemies. I am trying to find a place I can have the map packs laminated, so as to not get ruined. Must buy more however,there can never be enough.
We use a 4' x 6' battlemat created from the sewn together hides of five hobos we caught loitering around our gaming locale one night. Though curing of the hides wasn't too much of an issue, it was a pain in the rear to get the little 1-inch squares inked onto them. By the way, I'm very happy with how well dry erase markers work on the surface. :-P
A 3'x6' roll of green felt with 1" squares drawn on it.
A myriad collection of WotC miniatures and Reaper's minis.
The critter packs are cool, but why hasn't anyone made some specifically for the APs? (or for any specific module) I know I'd buy every one of them. We're going through AoW after finishing SCAP, and next will be STAP.
I use Chessex Battlemat, Rackham Reversing Gaming Tiles and minis, and some tactical maps found on the net. For the Sea Wyvern I took the standard caravel map from the WotC site (the one from Stormwrack).
Right now we're using 1-inch graph paper and random D&D painted minis that have nothing to do with the actual monster besides size. I've been wanting to get tact-tiles for quite awhile but they have been out of stock for three or so months now as they have been trying to find a new supplier.
I want my tact-tiles...