I'm with you on that. The lathe I learned on and used up until my late teens, was a Leblond 16x54. A rare mix of solid and austere simplicity revealing only the precision it was designed for. When I took a machine shop in high school, we had two other lathes in it's class one was a Sheldon and I liked it. Also had some circa 1950's 9 and 10" floor lathes -and thought to myself "what heck is this?".
LeBlond and Sheldon: The big floor jobs, 8 to 10 HP... Would like to have one again some day.
Congrats on holding-out and getting what you were after!
Ray