My first experience with the smart guide

This past weekend I used my new smart guide for the first time. I also purchased a Makita 5007 MAG with the smart guide.

First of all let me say that I'm not experienced with woodworking or construction, or no more than any other person who grew up helping their father with construction tasks around the house.

Back to this weekend's project. I have a new miter saw and the smart table and ez guide with a makita 5007 (is that the model number?). I'm assuming in order to save money you would use the more expensive 10" miter saw blades on finish work and the less expensive 7 1/4" circular saw blades on rough work. Is this correct?

I needed to cut some 2x4's for wall studs. So I decided to try to cut them with the ez-guide (maybe overkill) and smart table. I had a hard time doing this. Maybe the smart table isn't meant for this but instead for sheet cutting (plywood). I'm not sure, please correct me if I'm wrong. The first problem I noticed is that the saw's blade guard was coming in contact with the ez-guide and making it hard to slide the saw. By the way, I started with the saw on the end of the guide, was I supposed to start a bit into the guide and raise the blade guard manually to get around this?

To get around the blade guard problem I raised the guard manually to get past the problem. The saw got through some portion of the 2x4 (crosscut), maybe 2 1/2", but then it wasn't going any further. I assume it was due to the wood pinching the saw blade. If so, what's the best way to crosscut this type of material?

Thanks,
Nick