Gentlemen

I've experience with a few modeling lathes / mills as well as some of the commercial versions. The production machines are great, except cost and space may be issues.

For hobby use I've found the Unimat (3" swing, very limited mill) too small. The Machinex 5 (5" swing, mill limited to light material) useful and I still have one for small lathe work. The Smithy 1229 is a very good hobby machine with quite suitable lathe, mill capabilities (including threading and gear cutting).

A consideration is the additional cost of accessories for any machine. The Smithy folks offer these at reasonable prices also.
http://www.smithy.com/