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As for how much you want to spend on a grinder, I don't think that affects the quality of the result so much as the ease of use. The more expensive grinders are typically easier to clean and faster.
Grinding coffee is, I find, non-trivial and most of the coffee grinders sold on the High Street don't do a good job-- just as most of the High Street "gourmet" coffee stores tend to not just over-roast but also poorly grind what they sell. Espresso/Presto preparation, for example, demands quite a different handling than Aeropress, French Press (e.g. Chambord), Melitta, Chemix, Turkish etc.. and it's not just the grade of the grind. Espresso results are horribly dependent on the grinding technique. One really needs a good slow conical burr grinder. Blade grinders work great with Chemix but produce sub-standard espresso. That is why even in Italy most people purchase Lavazza tins pre-ground. The success of capsule machines too seems to reflect this. Turkish coffee is another "problem" case. Not only does the grind need to be extremely fine-- finer than most coffeee grinders are capable of making-- but the grinding needs to run cool. Most of the household Turkish grinding mills I've seen are not only time consuming but don't get the grind anywhere near the standard a good Turkish roaster can deliver in little bags using their special roller grinders. I'm not familiar with any grinder that is ideal for all the different types of coffee just as there is no single coffee machine for all the different coffee creation (brew, influsion, press etc.) methods. The least critical method I've found is a "mud method" that used to be popular in Soviet Russia: beans are smashed, crushed and ground with a motar and pestle and then cooked in a pot with water and strained (similar to Turkish but Turkish does not get strained and the ground is much much finer)... Another variation of that method is Mexican coffee--- as an aside.. in the early 1980s I went crazy trying to get a cup of real coffee in Mexico city as it seemed that Nescafe had already won over the hearts and minds of the Mexicans.. "Cafe?" I asked.. "No. Nescafe!"-- here the "grind" is much coarser but .....
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EdwardZ
Fresh grind wins, as long as you're getting the size right. Grind some beans and then sniff the grounds - awesome aroma and a direct caffeine hit to the brain ;) But that's because grinding the beans exposes a much larger surface area than before and so those volatile, tasty chemicals are now evaporating from the grounds at a significant rate. The longer the time gap between grind and making the coffee, the more flavour is gone. Putting the ground coffee in a sealed container slows that a bit, but each time you open it and use some, more fresh air comes in. Keeping the beans intact and grinding when you want to make a cup preserves much more flavour, even though there is obviously still some evaporation.
Another win for doing your own grinding is that you can vary the size to suit the way you're making the coffee, if you have more than one option (or like to try different methods even with just the one apparatus).
As for how much you want to spend on a grinder, I don't think that affects the quality of the result so much as the ease of use. The more expensive grinders are typically easier to clean and faster.