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I hear ya. Not looking to get a cheap Chinese machine because of the lack of precision and reliability as you say but I know rigidity is always going to be a big compromise on these things compared to a full size, free standing vertical mill. The one I’m looking at specifically is this one
Which gets decent reviews from the small model makers, clock makers etc and is the best part of £700 new.
Reviews say it’s fairly precise out of the box with minimal slop and fairly good at repeatability.
I’m not doing anything heavy duty, hole saw cuts, real simple milling jobs like V blocks and the likes.
I think it would be fine. It comes with the bench vice and parts are readily available from what I can see.
Made in the US with a decent reputation
PhilDAS
Biggles567
People do it, theres that pithy bikes guy on yt who uses one of those small benchtop chinese mills. AFAIK they work ok, just with a bit of fettling. However because they are small,and small machines aren't rigid, you are forced to run the hole saw much faster than is best.This means that you wear the cutting tool faster.
Depends what mill you use as well, If you can find an older benchtop machine from 60s70s80s, then you are in a much better place (imo) than buying one of the chinese ones which are quite shite tbh. My lathe is from 1955, and runs amazing, way better than a chinese machine and half the price.
If you can find one, an older machine is a good bet, coincidentally theres someone looking for something similar on the lathes.co.uk classifieds at the moment.
http://www.lathes.co.uk/page3.html/