Ian,
I tend to agree with you, but I would like to point out a few caveats.
In my opinion, a training machine should have the same controller and the same precision that a production machine has. What a training machine does not need is a very large envelope, very high rapids, very high feeds, and chip evacuation. To understand this, let me make an analogy: when I learned flying, I did so on a Cessna 172SP. Compared to an airliner, it has a small capacity (4 passengers), it climbs slow, it flies slow, and unloading luggage isn't particularly easy. In this analogy, your envelope is my passenger count, your rapids are my climb speed, your feeds are my cruising speed, and your chip evacuation is my luggage unloading.
But this little Cessna had two things that very important to me as a student pilot: it had the exact same avionics as a jet that is 10 times more expensive (Garmin G1000 at the time), and it had a GPS that is every bit as precise. In fact, in many instances, student planes are loaded with modern avionics (including autopilots) that are much more advanced and sophisticated than what you will find on many airliners still flying today in the Western hemisphere.
Why is that important? Regarding the instrument panel, because you want student pilots to get as many hours in front of this complex system as they possibly can, and the sooner they start, the better. Familiarity with an instrument panel might save your life one day. Regarding the precision of GPS positioning, I think we can all agree that having students landing on the wrong runway because their GPS location is off by a few hundred feet would not be such a great idea.
Well, the same translates to controller and precision. I am an ardent advocate for the fact that a training machine should have the exact same controller that a production machine is using. From a marginal cost of production standpoint, controllers are cheap (they're just PCs with a fancy enclosure) and software is free. Therefore, there is positively no reason not to use the best that modern technology has to offer.
As far as precision is concerned, I respectfully reject the idea that student parts should not be made to the same tolerances as production parts. In fact, during my initial training as a machinist, we cut a few parts without caring much about tolerances, but it's only when we did our last project for which tolerances were important that everything came together. And when we did that project, I made sure to buy my own carbide endmills and lathe cutting tools with carbide inserts in order to produce as good a surface finish as I could get, on machines that were pretty accurate to start with, but were spoiled by poor cutting tools. And as you know, you cannot have an accurate piece if you do not have an accurate machine. You might be able to compensate for a bit of backlash here and there, but this takes a lot of practice, and I do not think that this is the kind of thing that we should teach future machinists, because this is not the kind of skill that they will be hired for in the workplace. Instead, their mastery of 5-axis machining (and 6-axis in the future hopefully) is what will give them job security.
Envelope, rapids, and feeds can be scaled down, but controller and accuracy should not.
Now, once again, I am convinced that we can have comparable accuracy with parts that are on average 30% cheaper than the ones we are planning to use for the initial build. But there are many good reasons to go for top-of-the-line parts initially, most of them I have already outlined in prior posts.
One last comment: you keep referring to offshore or "Chinese" as a source of low cost and low quality parts and machines. I tend to view this opinion as fairly shortsighted, and I would like to invite you to reconsider it. For that, all you have to do is look at history. After World War II, Japan started churning out parts and tools with low cost but low quality. Eventually though, they managed to increase quality tremendously, while keeping prices low. Today, I don't think you view Japan as a source of low cost/low quality goods. In fact, as far as CNC machines are concerned, I view Japan as being the country setting the benchmark alongside Germany.
Interestingly, the same keeps happening throughout history. Today, we look at Switzerland as the place that makes chocolate and fine timekeeping pieces. But a few hundred years ago, the best pocket watches would come from Britain. One day, Swiss farmers started producing low cost/low quality knockoffs, and they took over. This evolutionary process keeps repeating itself over and over again, all the time.
Well, if that is true, we should expect the same to happen for Chinese CNC machines. Sooner than we all think, most of the critical innovation in the space will come from China, and their machines will match or exceed what you can buy from Germany or Japan. In fact, it is quite likely that many of the top-of-the-line manufacturers that we know today will have gone out of business or will have become irrelevant by that time.
What does that tell us? Well, first, you cannot fight against the tide of history, there really is no point trying. Second, instead of trying to make it a zero-sum game, try to understand how we can work together. In that respect, the partnership between DMG and MORI is inspiring. Good ideas can come from any place. There is talent everywhere, we just have to keep open eyes and an open mind to find it.
Cheers!
Ismael