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I don't see anyone here saying that a hand wheel on the lead screw is a bad idea. Only that on the larger size machines it isn't practical due to the distance from the work area. In fact on smaller machines I actually consider it a useful advantage over the larger machines where they are not practical or possible.
Another place where the smaller machines shine is their ability to be used with a wedge locked spindle crank for doing jobs like single point cutting a metric thread up to a shoulder on imperial thread machines. The ones where the lead screw gets engaged then never disengaged until the job is done. On lathes with a clutch this isn't that big a deal. On a lot of home lathes with no clutch it's a HUGE deal. And a hand wheel would just make it so much less hassle. But here again reaching a handle of that sort in the outboard end of a larger headstock makes it hard to see what is going on at the cutter.
Another place where the smaller machines shine is their ability to be used with a wedge locked spindle crank for doing jobs like single point cutting a metric thread up to a shoulder on imperial thread machines. The ones where the lead screw gets engaged then never disengaged until the job is done. On lathes with a clutch this isn't that big a deal. On a lot of home lathes with no clutch it's a HUGE deal. And a hand wheel would just make it so much less hassle. But here again reaching a handle of that sort in the outboard end of a larger headstock makes it hard to see what is going on at the cutter.
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