Yes, slatwall will collect some dust, but just run the shop vac over it (or blast it with the air hose if you like to breath dust
) during your normal cleaning.
Positives and negatives: You can position items on slatwall in an infinate number of places horizontally, but are limited to fewer spots virtically. Slotwall is easy to paint. Pegboard has about twice as many vertical positions, but is limited on the horizontal placements. Pegboard collects paint in all the holes when painted, making the process tedious, or time consuming to drill out the paint later. With pegboard, you also lose the holes where you have bracing behind it for strength. Not so with slatwall.
The person that had my house before we bought it, had pegboard up for tools. He also had slatwall cut and turned vertically for wainscotting on the lower walls!!!!
I took out the pegboard, and reclaimed as much slatwall as I could. Most slatwall I've seen in business settings was painted. This stuff has an oak plastic laminate applied to the surface. I have several joints for each longer section I made, but hey, the price was right!
I'm cutting some of the pieces that are too badly water damaged to use on the wall in 3/4" strips, and skinning the laminate off of it. I can put this into the slats to cover up the MDF look. Kind of dresses it up a little, and can be pulled out if need be.
If you go the slatwall route, watch for some retail stores going out of business that have this up on the walls. You might be able to get some lexan hangers for it that are little shelves. We used to have some at a stereo store I worked at. Not cheap if you have to buy them new. I picked up some "pegs" for the slatwall from a Radio Shack store that closed, a nickle a piece. Hope my experiences help. Jim.