I understand what you saying, he shouldn't buy an industrial compressor if he knows that he's only going to be doing minor things. If his need are well defined, I definitely do NOT recommend wasting money buying more than he needs. It just sounded like he wasn't sure what he wanted, but it seemed like he would probably find a use for one. On the other hand, buying an air compressor is like a gun safe, nobody ever wishes they had bought smaller.

A small 1 gallon pancake compressor is great for airing up tires, but then a small 12V one is probably better for that use anyway. The dilemma is, if the job is big enough to justify using a pneumatic nailer, it's probably too big for a small compressor to handle easily. And if it's a small enough job that a small compressor can do it, it's probably just easier to pull out a hammer. It's just happens to be one of those things that aren't big enough to be really useful, but not small enough to be very portable either, it's sort of in compressor limbo. This is just my experience. Also, compressors prices don't scale linearly with the size/power, you can pick up a 1.5hp, 15 gallon compressor for about the same price as the 1/4 hp, 1 gallon one you linked to.

The most important thing is to really asses your needs, both present and future, then decide. It's cheaper to buy one that will cover all your needs in the future, than to incrementally keep upgrading everytime yours won't do the job. You don't want to end up with a bunch of intermediate sizes of air compressor sitting in your garage