Ode to Wood Splitting

I have had an outdoor wood stove for about three years now.  The wood boiler heats the water that runs through my concrete floors (yes, all three levels).  I love the radiant floor heat, and the wood cutting is not so bad.  As long as I keep the pieces no more than two foot in length and that I can lift them, no splitting involved.  I've gotten pretty used to a chainsaw, in my mind anyway.  I have a pair of chaps (thank goodness) to protect my legs and even have a few holes in them - hence the necessity of them.  But I have given up on cutting trees down.  I can cut them up, usually, but I leave the cutting down part to an expert or whoever else I can convince to do the job.
Today, I had some rather large pieces and decided it would be a lot easier if they were split.  I've watched people split wood with a wedge and axe and thought I should give it a go.  The first log I chose already had a hole down the center.  I figured half the work was done for me so I should start with an easy one to build my confidence.  I am sure some of you can figure out what happened...yes, the wedge slipped into the hole and of course got stuck.  How does one pull a wedge back out?  It really wasn't helping at all with the splitting of the wood.  Luckily, (of course) I realized the hole went all the way through and using a screwdriver, a rather large one, I was able to pound the wedge back out the top.
Then I was able to try it again.  This time it worked and I split another log (with a hole in it as well) and another.  Smooth sailing.  Maybe there is no need for a mechanical wood splitter, but then, I looked at the pile of logs I had left to split and thought my time could be much better spent and a mechanical splitter would take about half an hour to finish the lot.  Hmmm.  Can I justify the cost?  Or do I count the calorie burning, weight lifting/resistance as a gain and just do it by hand?