It took less than half an hour to diagnose and fix a minor alignment issue with my table saw. The combination square indicated the blade was parallel to the miter slow, and the fence was out slightly.
The initial sign of trouble was that the rising teeth would throw up quite a bit of sawdust. If I stopped pushing the wood through, there would be a circular "rainbow" left where the blade was.
After adjusting the fence the cuts are much smoother, the rising teeth aren't throwing up as much sawdust, and there's no more unwanted "rainbow" effects. The difference is like going from an ok blade to a good one.
Why did I wait so long?
Puckdropper