Thanks for the welcome. :) And to clarify - I won't be building the machine myself. I don't have the time to learn several new fabrication skills (only because I've got my hands full keeping up with customers in my existing business).

I had previously looked at Heiz, routout, PlatformCNC, JBEC, MDice, OX, etc. All of those have been more-or-less pulled apart here, some for the reasons you menton, Rob. Those reasons seem to make good sense. So I went looking to find those commercial machine makers in the £5000 bracket whose machines are well regarded here... and can't find a single thread with any consensus.

I am planning a trip up to EXEL to see the SL4570, and still have Haase as a possibility. I might even fly over there with some materials and DXFs if they do demos.

(I won't clutter up this 'Introduction' section with my detailed Qs - I'll ask them in the relevant sections.)