I bought an FCR 3 a few weeks ago to start commuting to school this summer. My commute starts tomorrow and is 30 miles RT. I've been out riding a lot to get ready for it and I am really happy with this bike so far. Before I took it out of the shop I had fenders and a back rack put on it. I can't say how hard it is to install as the shop did it,but it looks like the bike was built for the stuff to be put on.
Since I need to carry around a backpack I did what a lot of students on campus seem to do....instead of getting panniers or a basket that hangs down off of the side of my rack, I bought a "front" basket and zip tied it to the top of my back rack. It holds everything I need to get around and keeps the weight on the center line of the bike. Panniers would be a pain to lug around campus and I was thinking of getting one of the hanging rear baskets but I didn't want all the weight of my books to be hanging off of one side of my bike. I thought it might be harder to handle that way.
I tried a couple of different bikes and the FCR3 just seemed faster to me in my test rides.