Rob, some misunderstanding here, I designed the parts in Solidworks, an expensive 3d drawing package, that I can use because of my work as system administrator. Then my parts are made in on the machines we have for our students. But as you see they can make usefull things. But I've been standing a lot of hours watching the machine doing it's work. We get a new small high speed milling machine next week, The guy from the workshop asked me if I had sonething he could make with it:-) My costs were the aluminium.
But if you want to try the emachineshop software, you can download it free, and try how difficult it is.