You know, I did not want to say too much and running the risk of sounding like a HAAS shill. BUT
I also have a 2001 SL10 with 4126 cut-hours. To date it has cost me $270 for a complete set of waycover felts and $20 for 6 varactors that blew out during a lightning storm.
It does hold +/-.0003 without too much trouble, finish is as good as anything. It has also never seen steel. SST by far the most common, good amount of Inco and some AL. It does drive a 1.25 insert drill into stainless with no issue whatsoever.
BUT!!
Mine is one of the first ones ever built, It has the same 10 station turret as the SL20, same Parker hydraulic unit, MMK chuck. The current models appear to be built cheaper and somewhat cheesier. 12 station 3/4 stick turret, some off-name hydraulic unit, dunno what chuck. I know of only one new SL10, that is now traded in for an Okuma, which had major hydraulic issues, even after a complete replacement.
There are 3 SL20-s I know about and they are also flawless. My other HAAS lathe is the MiniLathe, absolutely 0 trouble with what it does, but it has some design issues which I can't do anything about .
So, my point is that for me HAAS does the job as good as anyone would expect it and I would not for one second hesitate to buy another one. OTOH I would not get a new SL10.
When I looked for my new lathe, I first looked at the SL20 with a boatload of options (bigbore, toolsetter, parts catcher, high pressure coolant etc.) The price came to within an earshot of the 8" Mori Duraturn. I did end up buying the Mori, partly because of outside pressure, partly personal reasons, partly because of reputation and in large part for the mechanical features.
Nonetheless, I am happy with the new machine (less the control but I digress...) it appears to be what I expected. At the same time the SL20 would most likely have served me just as well, as long as the reliability remained the same as my others.
For Jim, he had machine issues as well as dealer issues. For all we or he knows, the two may even be related. In his case moving on to another brand sounds like the prudent thing to do.