In-between machines?

Hi all,

I am by no means a machinist. I do have an HF 7x10 lathe and an HF
micro-mill, both of which I intended to convert to CNC, but after lurking on
some machining mailing lists and after a couple hours of experimentation, I
know it will not get me what I need. Of the lists I'm on, I'm guessing and
hoping this is the best for my question.

What I ultimately need is a way to make low-volume aluminum parts with a
"decently clean" finish. More specifically, the lathe parts are max 2" in
length x 3.5" diameter, and the best finish I need is 32 or 64 microinches
(I'm estimating from samples I've seen). Low volume is perhaps 100 pcs per
month. The parts will be mostly turned, with some minor milling afterwards.
I envision spending one whole day a month doing this.

The ideal machines would be as mechanically maintenance-free as reasonably
possible. Sure, I expect I'd need to maintain it, but I don't want to be
tweaking screws and adjusting things everytime I fire it up. But I don't
mind learning and doing whatever programming is required.

For the mill, I know I can get converted table top machines such as rong-fu,
bridgeport, etc from companies such as CNC masters. That's fine.

But for the lathe, other than converting to CNC myself (which is an ordeal for
me), I am looking for some lower-end commercial lathes, or used commercial
lathes. An automatic tool-changer would be nice, but not if it adds tens of
thousands of dollars to the price. A 9x or 12x machine seems like it would
be great size/capacity wise, but that means converting it myself. Wabeco
seems to have a couple machines that are the right size, but not sure if they
are hobby machines or otherwise, and the owner of the US distributorship is
also very deceptive in his marketing, so I prefer not to deal with them at
this point. Companies like Haas and Fadal want to sell me $40K-$50k
machines, which is out of the question, both for cost and size.

So where does that leave me? Are there any machines that's in-between these
options that might do what I need.$10k-$15k would be nice.

Thanks,
-Neil.