Well there ARE steps you can take if your really serious about planing very soft woods that tend to get that fuzzy finish. For one, use a very sharp planer knives. For most woods, as the knives get dull your finish is not as smooth, there is more tear out in figured wood, and you get lines down your board from nicks in the knife, but with something like soft willow, all that gets exaggerated, and a dull blade will create more fuzz and even rougher surface. In effect, when your knives are not sharp, instead of planing the boards, you are kinda "beating and hacking" at them (it's also hard on your planer bearings). Another solution if you can justify it, is switch the planer head to an indexable spiral cutterhead with those little solid carbide knives. I can tell you from experience that they produce much less tear out in figured wood, and much less fuzz in very soft wood. They do sometimes produce very slight linear lines you can sometimes see in certain grain, but they are almost negligible. Point is, they really do a better job planing with less fuzzies. Problem is they usually raise the price of the planer by at least a third, although they are getting cheaper every year. I liked them so much I got a spiral head to upgrade my jointer also.