....Almost all machines are build to a price point - you have some exceptions from long time ago - like say 10EE or similar lathes...
That's not really a fair comparison. The 10EE is an industrial quality design. It was originally built to run for thousands of hours making high precision parts and needing minimal maintenance.
By comparison, the hobby machines are much lower quality, mainly for price point.
Original list price for a base 10EE in '46 was $4,194. corrected for inflation that's roughly $71G in 2023 dollars. You can by one heck of a nice lathe for that today and clearly far outside the reach of the hobby/benchtop lathes.....they're just not even in the same class, not even close.
It's a similar case for all the older, bigger machine tools; they were made for businesses, not hobbyists....hobbyist level tools back then would have been something like and Atlas 10 or Craftsman 101. Not even in the same league as the larger machines. Quality or purchase price wise. Certainly usable, but not the same quality at all.
My little BB CX601 works fine for what I use it for, once a few minor modifications were made (like replacing the plastic H/L gear) and I got past the shocking lack of support from BB.
That's the biggest turn off about this mill for me; BB was doing anything they possibly could to avoid fixing it, or even sending me parts so I could fix it. Shameful.
You have to know up front that if you buy from BB, you're on your own once the lift-gate drops it in your driveway....