Am I heading in the right direction?....

[Ger21]

that said, it would be good to see anyone's idea of what percentage of your budget you' should allocate to which part of the machine... e.g. 15% on base structure, 35% xyz hard wear 50% on power, control, motors etc....

So you get the best out for your buck..

any takers?

I've never seen anyone try to break it down that way. Probably because it doesn't work. You can't really cut corners anywhere without sacrificing the quality of the machine.

Good linear guides are the foundation of a good machine. Cutting corners there directly impacts the quality of the machine.
Good linear guides require a solid, rigid frame. The straightness and rigidity of the linear guides is dependent on the mounting surfaces, so you can't cut corners there.

Good motors and bad motors are all about the same price. There aren't really good and bad motors, but rather correct and incorrect for your application.
You can save a bit of money on drives. However, most people that cut corners on drives tend to upgrade to the better drives to improve performance, and end up spending more than if they had purchased the good drives in the first place.

The cheapest way to get a good machine is to spend more money. Any places you try to save money will usually result in spending more money later to replace the cheap components. Or you live with an inferior machine that still cost 80% of what a good machine would have cost.