I haven't personally run a Makino, The Makinos that are down in the low to mid 100k range are, as far as I know, more of a value line for them and I would never buy one of those over a Fanuc.
Ok, as fa ras I know:
Don't have hands-on experience with Fanuc, but a customer of mine has a Fanuc and two Mitsubishis, and they do prefer the Fanuc.
In my case however, the U3 I have is absolutely flawless.
I have the Pico guides ( round ) instead of the split type V guides, and the threader is insanely reliable.
May not ( nor is it advertised as such ) be capable of threading into the kerf, but .03 holes I routinely thread into.
You have 3 threading modes, the "Fast" one is sickeningly quick but it depends on things like how close you're to an edge or wire type, but it shoots the wire through in 4 seconds.
The middle setting is gently pushing the wire until it's seen in the lower contact, then switches to high speed. perhaps 8 or so second.
The lowest setting is slow all the way through, but nearly 100% accurate, and I mean that.
If however you need to manually thread ( yes, we all know there are such instances ), you won't need to enable,disable, disconnect, monkey with anything.
There is a manual thread button, readily available whenever you need it.
As far as machine accuracy, the stock techs are deadly to a tenth. If you need to split tenths, then you probably wouldn't ask about a Fanuc anyway.
The techs are overwhelming to say the least, but can be figured out and adjusted for oddball stuff.
Reliability .... 3 years, no need to call or have anyone come out for anything. Had a couple of sw updates, but it was more of a coincidental, "well, we're in the neighborhood anyway
so might as well stop by and upgrade if you want to" kind of update.
Consumables and their lifetime is very reasonable. Power contacts, tension roller and the upper/lower "close" fluscup lips are pretty much the only thing you need on hand.
Maintenance is also reasonable, pretty easy to get things apart, quick clean and re-assemble.
I too miss the wire chopper, but have seen the pictures and description of Makino's version. I understand that they don't like to recommend it, but do not understand why.
I have 2 Brothers with choppers, and they only need emptying the bin and index a set of $20 ceramic inserts ( 16 times ) every 20 or so hours.
The Makino chopper looks very very much like the Brothers, so do not see why that would be an issue.
If you got specific questions on anything, feel free to ask.
( My only wish is that they somehow add a "BACK" function .......
)