Wow Joe.... You sure do ask everything all at once!!!
It took me months to figure out what I would need and what would wait in the draw for many moons to get used!
When you but end mills get some slot drills in the same sizes, the 2 flute ones as opposed to the 3/4 flute ones, they enable cutting downwards as well as across, I found the difference when endmills wouldn't go down more than a mm or so without a pre-drilled hole.
Also, if the mill is small then you might find as I did that the collet chuck can take up a lot of valuable room.... I used MT3 collets for ages, the only pain is raising and lowering the head of the mill (on my mill drill it swivels!! none of your choices has that though.) Collet chucks and drill chucks are similar in length (mostly). only thing is you need to make the choice to buy all metric or all imperial tooling, MT collets do not clamp inbetween sizes!
I got quite a bit of second hand tooling at first, didn't (still don't really) have the cast for all the new bits. Sold some stuff to get the vise (vertex 4") and clamp set. You will need to fork out for a reasonable quality vise, as it's the key component to much out our work, also a way of tramming said vise would be useful!
I'm just throwing it out there cause there could be space issues? Like when You have a rotary table with a chuck on it and then the workpiece!! (don't go and buy all those straight away!)
Just thinking about when I started is all...
I've been to the Chester warehouse in Harwarden, the 16v is quite large compared to some and seems quite well made.... Twidddled the wheels etc all had a vice feel to it, they have it in the foyer. didn't see it running though. but owned a Chester mill drill for 3 years and it's worked pretty well (should have sold it by now since I got my new one!)
Can't really comment on the others having never seen them. One thing I will say, the heavier machine does make a difference when you're taking larger cuts
But to answer the larger table question.... It gives the ability to hold down bigger stuff to machine, with this hobby you might just need to some day!
also you could do like I usually do. Rotary table on the left hand side and vise on the right, allowing them to be left there with enough movement left and right on the vise to work with (2-3" either side) the rotary table doesn't need much to the left if vertical and rarely outside of it's own table area if it's horizontal, so it can be right over to the left.
Hope I haven't confused you, I'm just trying to point out a few of the bits I found out when I started
This really can be quite an expensive hobby to start off!
Hope you have fun with whatever you choose.
Watch out for the breaking end mills too!! Best read up on climb milling....Been there done that!
Ralph.