Miscellaneous ramblings of an old man:
I looked at the Laguna you mentioned. It's similar to my buddies Felder. In my opinion, not an 8 hour a day 10 year machine. Will it do what you want? Sure, but it'll cost you in the long run.
I like heavy iron. To be fair, we have evolved our business to the point where we only cut plywood and lots of it. Not uncommon to cut 100 or more sheets a day on our KOMO. The Laguna would not handle that.
My Biesse and Komo have rapids in the 3200 IPM range. Fast enough that you can't get out of the way.
As I mentioned, that Felder couldn't cut a straight line when cutting a shaker door unless slowly. On my ANDI one of my guys made a mistake and ran our surfacing program with a sheet of 12mm Baltic birch on the table. 1200 IPM. Machine didn't break a sweat.
If you are going the Laguna style route check the pneumatics. The heavy machines typically have 2 pneumatic systems, one lubricated and one dry. The lubricated for all the pneumatics on the machine and the dry for all the places that use a jet of air for cleanliness, during a tool change for instance. I know the aforementioned Felder only had a dry system resulting in many valve and cylinder failures to the point that my guy re-plumbed the machine for both.
Heavy iron tends to have automatic lubrication systems and huge bearings that last 20 years or more. I have had several machines 20+ years old and I have never had to replace a linear bearing. They also tend to use more off the shelf rather than proprietary components. If you get a Fanuc control support is everywhere.
Regarding drill blocks. In my experience drilling is the most time consuming part of cabinet parts. It's not only the tool change time that is saved. If you configure it properly you can drill multiple holes at once. 3 5mm drills on both the X and Y means that all sets of shelf holes and hinge holes are done in one plunge rather than 2 or 3. Calculate that time over a year and it's amazing.
Ride along tool changers are also important. As you noted with the Laguna a lot of time is wasted going back to the end of the machine for every tool. lets say an extra 5 seconds per tool change times 3 changes per sheet times 30 sheets per day is 750 seconds per day or, if my math is correct, 25 hours per year. If you bill out the CNC at $120.00 per hour (I'm in the $160 range), that's $3,000 per year in lost opportunity.
Software, software software. Pick a machine that does NOT depend on the factory software. Spend the $ for AlphaCAM (I use this) or MasterCAM. If you can use it, things like staydown (bridged) nesting can cut 10% to 15% off your cutting time.
Invest in vacuum. It looks like the default Laguna vacuum is a regenerative blower. High flow, low vacuum. They are used because they are cheap, not because they work. Busch or Becker is better, low flow high vacuum, but a Travani or similar is best, hi flow hi vacuum.
Heavy iron takes more power to run but for a shorter time. I suspect that it's pretty even.
Lots of good old iron out there at reasonable prices. They make take a little longer to get going and will need some TLC to be perfect, but once dialed in they will run forever. A lot of them are being replaced only because they cannot talk to the computers in the office. We use USB floppy emulators and USB sticks to communicate with our machines. Inexpensive and works just fine. Keeps the machines off the network so they can't be touched by any kind of virus that the girl in the office picks up watching youtube at lunchtime.
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