I just got my timing belt, water pump and serpentine belt replaced. My car had 107K miles so it was due. I no longer feel like I'm walking on eggs, owing to horror stories about the timing belt breaking and destroying the engine. One observation though. I used to have a hesitation just off of idle at a stop, but after the work mentioned above was done, no more hesitation. I'm not sure if that was an early symptom of impending failure or not.

 

could be that your hesitation was due to the timing be a bit "off" prior to belt replacement. when they replaced the belt they realigned the cams and crank so everything was back in line the way it is supposed to be.

 

That's certainly a possibility. Maybe the timing belt stretched a bit.

 

the belt will stretch but the tensioner is supposed to take care of that. the tensioner is one of the things that is considered a common fail point though.

or maybe it's all in your head