all the companies that sell lower cost imported machine tools now sell some very similar mill/drill/lathe combo machines. i'm quite sure that none of them did any research and development - they just copied something else that was already made. i'm guessing that the machine you looked at is probably the benchmark that the imports were copied from. if you do still end up being interested, it might be worth looking up a parts manual for that machine and the import ones to see if they are in fact the same. i did see an emco site saying that they hadn't been made for over 30 years and parts were scarce, so yeah, a break could be bad since they aren't the most common thing. the other phenomenon i have seen is that with small quirky tools there is usually a following that likes to restore them as much as use them, so demand may put the cost higher than actual production value should be.
as was noted, the smaller the machine, the smaller the work you can do. if space is not an issue, larger tools will give you more work flexibility. around here decent knee mills and lathes will generally run $1500-$2000 each, though in my area there are not often a lot for sale. i've seen people talk about buying them for $500 or so, but great deals are a matter of luck. the one biggest thing i can say is that since they are your first machines, try to get one with a lot of tooling thrown in. tooling and accessories can add up to more cost than the machine in a hurry.
