The new garage door opener arrived today. I'm looking forward to getting it installed, but still needed to remove the old one so that was tonight's task. Removing the old one ended up being as straightforward as I expected. I was able to unbolt the motor unit from the ceiling mounts without any issues and lowered it down to a sawhorse table I had set up. I then went to work on the chain and was surprised to discover the rail was one complete 7+ foot metal piece. The rail on all modern openers is generally a multipart unit that you assemble. I called it a night once I got the rail disconnected from the mount above the door and anticipate that I will start work on installing the new one tomorrow once I get home from basketball practice.
Reading the reviews online I'm kind of surprised at all the people that have indicated installation took several hours. Maybe I'm a complete optimist, but it seems like the kind of task that at most should take me a couple hours across a few days. The existing mounting hardware should be mostly reusable and assembly is pretty straightforward if you have any kind of mechanical inclination. The sensors are probably the trickiest part, but as long as there's enough wire it should go fine. Additionally, there's no real rush so if I can get it finished up by Sunday evening I'll be in pretty good shape.