Now that the intro is over...

Looking for feedback:

I am wanting to build a plasma torch for a business venture. I have
been looking at Torchmate, Plasmacam and roll-your-own. Being a
computer guy I like the Windows interface (yes, I speak DOS as well)
to design and edit my graphics. I can do CAD but the type of work I
plan on doing would use CorelDraw for most of the generation.

1. PlasmaCam has some pretty neat software that does cut paths and
automatic conversion from scanned images. It also automatically
inserts piercing point lead-in's, does the torch offset and it is all
Windows based. The down side is the expense and that they prefer to
sell their complete servo driven rig.

2. Torchmate is more of a hardware "kit" (and affordable) solution
for someone like myself that already has motors, drivers, etc. They
sorta ignore the software side of things. They will also sell me a
kit of gantry parts less motors and drivers for a reasonable price.

I am concerned that I will spend a lot of my time "cleaning" up the
vector images from Corel to get good cut paths - things like cutting
internal holes before cutting the outline. I would welcome any
feedback from the group about using PC based graphics programs and
clipart to generate the master files. The electronics and post
processor I currently have is from Microkinetics purchased for a
small CNC rotary engraver I have about 60% finished. It takes input
from DXF or HPGL files. I have their Quickstep PC card and
microstepping motor drivers. They have a native language "developer"
tool that I assume can be used to interface to their card.

The final machine needs to be servo based and I am keenly interested
in the Gecko step to servo driver that lets me keep conventional step
based electonics but uses encoder based servo motors for smoother and
better control.

I keep going back and forth. I have just about burned my eyes out
reading information on the sites. Any ideas?