I have one and have had no issues. When this comes up on many forums, the negatives are never from people who have one. It's always something like "I've heard there are problems..."
I build model engines and try to work to very close tolerances. With the "real", glass scale DRO, I can hit a diameter within half a thou. The other day I was cutting grooves in .0625 brass rod for e-clips. The grooves must be .052 or the e- clip either won't go on or falls out. Each groove was bang on.
That said, there are few issues that I've addressed.
1. Replaced the compound, 2 bolt hold-down plate with a 4-bolt plate. This is a fairly common mod on the G0602 and increases the stiffness of the compound significantly.
2. Installed a VFD as I too hate changing belts and the ability to vary speed while the lathe is running is excellent.
3. Bison 3-jaw chuck.
4. Bison 5C chuck. This is on the lathe 95% of the time.
5. Tailstock DRO
6. Independent carriage feed motor with variable speed.
Why is is that when someone asks a question, someone invariably answers "get a used lathe" or "get American iron". In many respects that's true, but it was not the question asked.
Would I like an HLV-H or a 10EE? You bet! But one of those in "put it in the shop and start making chips" condition at the price of a G0602? Doesn't exist.
The only things about my G0602 that I don't like?
1. Change gears. Hate em. If I had a QC gearbox I'd probably do a lot more single point threading.
2. No power crossfeed.
As much as I like my lathe, I'm looking for a SB Heavy 10 to address these issues. I took a year and looked at more than 50 machines before I found my '69 Bridgeport mill.
The Heavy 10s that I've seen so far are junk. Chipped ways, rust and caked oil and coolant. Bad repairs. I'm not even a little bit interested in restoring a lathe. So I'll keep looking. Until then, my G0602 keeps making chips and that makes me a happy guy.