Used is the way to go. I really wanted a south bend heavy 10, but I got a Sheldon R13, which was intended to be a precision toolroom lathe. You see lathes around here for less than $1k fairly frequently. There used to be some really nice little benchtop horizontal mills. That's not as useful, but would be a good notcher. They are often available for free because people get them and never use them.

I build my first frame 33 years ago, dunno what that means really. How many of the people over at FF are even that old? I don't know how many of the pros have more than 5 years of experience, there has been a boom in the last few years. Then again, it doesn't take much time to amass quite a bit of experience. But it's impossible to tell for sure on the internet. I see plenty of newbies that get good help on frameforum. It really depends on how someone presents themselves. There is so much good stuff out there, if someone can't be bothered to look around, it raises red flags.

I'm in a learning stage myself. Steel framebuilding techniques are no different, but bikes have changed a lot since I built my last frame.