We bought a smithy machine last year, unfortunately it was delivered a couple of months after they said they would have it for us, aka right in the middle of build season. Granted they did give us some free tooling and a slight discount to try to compensate for this but the time was already lost. We had a small bench-top Light Machine that did alot that season but thankfully a couple of our sponsors and another local team (233 thanks Mike D.) chipped some machine time and helped us bust out some of the larger parts we needed.
During the off-season we have used it a lot on a prototype a drive train. Over all its a great machine for the price. It works well with Inventor if you purchase the InventorCAM, which is a major plus for us because that's what we do the majority of our work in. I like the cad to cam software a lot as it lets you set up your fixtures as part of the drawing and you can simulate everything before you actually make the part fairly easily. The program also so has really nice Imachining feature that keeps a constant bit pressure and allows it to be really aggressive with the machining. It has a few quirks in it that you will get used to. It defaults to the machine tool table over the one in InventorCAM so make sure they match. Physically its not bad for the price. Beds a nice size the only problem is that when flooding the part with coolant expect puddling to occur in the drip pan which means you need to add more once the process has started. It runs on Linux and support for the whole system is pretty nice. They pretty much get back to you the same day and the people seem pretty knowledgeable. If you connect it to the web they release updates pretty regularly. All in all I am pretty happy with it for the price minus the shipping issue. Once we worked out some of the quirks like which gcode post processor we needed to use its been a great machine and I think it will be a very valuable addition to our lab for this season. Obliviously this will not compete with some of the higher end machines but for the price its great and produce parts in a repeatable manor with except-able FRC tolerances, we have made a couple of gearboxes side-plates with it and they run pretty smooth. If you order it now Do not expect to use it this season as it wont get it in time. Use the off-season and prototype something that you have been wanting to and get used to the machine and by next build you will have a valuable addition to you lab as well.
With what ever machine you get I recommend getting a quick-change system for your tools. It will save you a lot of time once you get into it. That way you wont have to re-zero you machine on the z with every tool change if done right the tool table will compensate for the bit difference and size.
We have this set up and it works pretty well.
http://www.cncmasters.com/pdf/R8Tool_Pgs_90_91.pdf
If you have anymore questions, want pictures, or are going to be in town feel free to ask or pm me.