For small work there is also Taig in the US which is a bit more robust than the other American producer of tiny lathes. I had one briefly before moving to Europe and for the money they are a good value, just really light weight. With those machines you can use collets in the spindle, (I think they have a 5C collet spindle now but perhaps only for CNC) but at least you won't be fighting with worn out bearings, slides etc. They are no match for a Schaublin etc but they are cheap, available, and easy to ship which can be more important. There are also some Hardinge lathes in the sprit of the Schaublin 102 (without lead screws) which might be easier to find and use 5C collets which are much easier to find.
The fundamental issue with the Atlas, emco, myford or Chinese machines etc is that they tried to do everything on a super low budget, it would have been much better if they focused just on the minimal viable function list and forgot about all the details that are not strictly needed in the home shop. Emco and the copies with the added on "mill" is particularly bad. If you want a full featured professional machine it will come at a much higher cost and weight or it will be full of compromises. This is why I think Taig is a better idea, I wish they were a bit larger and heavier but the idea behind them is sound. Also the tooling costs are super low compared to Swiss stuff.
