That vinyl floor tile is an excellent idea Claymore, thanks for posting.
I'm having trouble with the table on my Excali getting marked (as everyone else does it seems). The original idea I had of a thin self adhesive transparent plastic film (book covering etc) worked "OK", but didn't last all that long before it started to score, sometimes causing irritating little hang ups when cutting.
I've since tried a somewhat thicker plastic (used for old fashioned draughtsmen's drawing boards) but not being self adhesive I've had to use double-sided carpet tape which, together with the thickness of the plastic itself, is also causing some problems.
I'll try one of those tiles (or something similar from the local DIY emporium) and advise further.
AES