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My wife has a Cricket Cutter ( which she uses for making cards.

I've built a RepRap.

My wife has no interest in it. The output isn't artistic enough. It's not that great.

Now, if someone could bring a computer-guided milling machine for $400, backed by a range of expensive woods / plastic consumables...

Agreed. The consumer models just aren't quite at the inflection point yet. I've been watching the Roland IModela but it's just not at the right price yet thought it's slowly getting there. http://technabob.com/blog/2011/10/10/imodela-3d-milling-mach...

You left off the difficulty multiplier, namely: "which can be operated and maintained by a typical consumer."

Unfortunately it can't be operated by the nerd who built it.

The software is a disaster, there are a few dozen builds of the libraries required to operate it, and only certain combinations work.

I've tried around 20 combinations so far and not one prints correctly in automatic mode.

When I have the time (and desire) it's something that I'll solve (I'm a software engineer after all, the community is mainly tech/mech engineers).