BJ,
You ask a subjective question of 'do the job'. Not knowing what you're thinking about, I'd hesitate to make a comment about the specific machines. I can tell you personal things that I kept in mind however.

For the lathe, I knew I was going to be working with 3/4 inch to 1 inch aluminum round stock for landing gear struts, so for ease of working with longer stock, that meant that I needed at least a 1 inch through the headstock capability. That lets you stick a 3 foot piece out the end of the lathe, and just clamp and work on a few inches at the end. The other element was I knew I was also going to turn down plugs for my engine bypasses, inlet liners, and inlet spikes. I knew the diameter and length of those, and that set the stage of needing a certain size of 'swing over bed', and length between centers, to see what the max part I could turn on it.

The mill I was more in the dark over, but what I got, I dug up reviews on the web and found that it had positive remarks, and also others had retrofitted some CNC components, or digital read outs to it, and figured it was one I could expand with. The one shot on the web site, that I think you're looking at that makes it look much smaller, is when I had the head rotated 90 degrees, and had it very low to the table. In addition to the finely graduated handles for X and Y on the table, my Z axis has a small hand wheel that can adjust the head up and down very precisely as well (half a thousand's or so), and have found that a needed element for me as well. Remember, you loose probably at least 3-4 inches over the bed by the time you clamp down a vice, to hold your parts easily.

Dennis's remarks are very true, and he's been an invaluable help in getting a clue about this, and I've greatly appreciated his assistance and advice. His remarks about features and costs was what I saw exactly when I was picking out my mill. My mill had a motor option that I could get to run the table left and right automatically....$250...then I throw in the $100 I spent on the table, and I'm to a certain amount. For literally $100 more, I could get the next step up in machine that had the motor built in, and came with a built in base. Trouble was, almost a thousand pounds and would require a fork-lift. That was a deal breaker for getting it into the basement.

Also, you get much more machine than what I got, you start looking at greater electrical requirements that a normal house outlet. Be sure to read and understand the electrical requirements of what you're looking at. All the manuals for the machines I was considering were available on the web, via PDF, and I read many of them, to fully understand the different capabilities and limitations of what I was considering.

So, it's a balance of, size of what things you're wanting to make, weight of machines you need to get moved and accommodated, sprinkled with a bit of web reviews on the specific make and model, and topped off with questions of can it be expanded on or improved in the future.

Lance