I can firmly recommend the Solidoodle 2 - it came fully assembled about a month ago for just about what my housemate's RepRap Prusa Mendel cost him to build last year, and is only slightly less capable (mostly in that the build area is a bit smaller).
I like the photos of the solidoodle2 and the price tag. How is the end product? Some dudes in a local hackerspace built a reprap a while ago but that thing is nothing but disappointment... Head drift, ooze problems, constant maintenance. What's the most complex thing you've printed, if you don't mind me asking?
Over the last two months, it's been decent. I had ooze issues, but they were cured by removing water from my filament using an oven and a lot of desiccant.
As for head drift and maintenance, no head drift and almost no maintenance required. I had to level the bed as it wasn't quite right when I got it (UPS clearly smashed the package as always, though, so it was probably right when it was shipped).
I think the manufactured steel-frame approach that Solidoodle and MakerBot have taken is superior in many ways to the cobbled-together threaded rods/hardware approach that RepRap designs take - you pay more for a large build area, but it's easier to get decent strength and much less fiddly in terms of setup (no adjusting bolts to make rods line up and the like). Sure, you can't make a copy with just a hardware store and a 3D printer, but for the price and functionality difference, I'll deal with that drawback.
I've printed a couple of decently complex models and what I've found is that settings and filament matter a -lot- more than anything else. The print head goes where I want it to and the extruder pushes the amount of plastic I request through the nozzle - beyond that, it's all about making sure the filament isn't expanding too much in the hot end via high quality filament and making sure there is -no- water in it, and getting the slicer to request the correct amount of plastic at the right rate.
All very interesting, thanks for the detailed response. I'm pretty interested in setting up a fully-automated custom brewery/distillery so I've been looking into making a lot of custom fittings for piping and heat-exchanging. Thanks again
