Opinion on Mercury 1996 9.9 4 stroke MA 4ST

I have an opportunity to buy a Mercury 1996 9.9hp 4 stroke model MA 4ST motor for $700. Are there any gotchas associated with this motor? I also can't find many references to the model MA 4ST, all the model numbers are something like "1010RT222". The motor "looks" good as in cosmetically it looks pretty new for its age. It was a little hard starting as I had asked the person selling it to leave it cold for when I came to look at it. He had also run the fuel out the day before after using it the last time. It started up after a good 5-8 pulls and ran fine in a garbage can. The stream was stong and not too hot. I shifted it into forward and reverse and it seemed to shift correctly and throw water out of the can real quick. It started within the first pull for the most part after warming up. I guess I am looking for opinions on a number of things like:

Is this model and year a bad combination?
Are there parts for this model that fail more so than others around the same year?
Should I wait for a 2 stroke because the older 4 strokes were just dogs?
Is $700 too much for this year model combination?

I now a lot of questions in a short message.

By the way I am trying to put this on a Princecraft 14' Fisherman LX for a horsepower limited reservoir. I am not expecting to get it up on plane just use it to get around the reservoir.

Thanks