Those small brothers are pretty good. But the larger 12 and 15 needles are worthless. If you buy a small field machine you will only have people wanting you to do full sized backs and caps. You can use an attachment for caps on a small field but it's not really commercial quality. If it were me, I would not buy a embroidery/sewing machine. Those combo machines are a pain if they break down because you usually lose both capabilities when they break.

Brother does have a great digitizing program. But it costs $5,000.00. I use Melco Design Shop which is to me a bit better than the Brother. But it costs $5,000.00 as well.

There are a lot of variables in embroidery. thread thickness, needle thickness, hoop tightness, correct backing and hundreds of other things. And digitizing is even worse because you have to account for stitch density and stitch direction if you want the design to look and lay right. Embird does have a true type text editor which will do most of the fonts on your computer automatically. And you can use Rmbird to digitize with. It just takes a lot of patience. But for a starter editing program it's about the cheapest around.

I have a sewing background and when thinking about getting into embroidery started looking at home machines. I can not tell you how glad I am that I went commercial. Yes they are expensive, my Barudan singlehead cost $15000+$3000 digitizing software, and the difference in sewout shows. I don't have problems with small fonts or lost registration. You could probably get a good deal on a used 9 needle (about $8000) but you want to make sure it checks out ok by someone that knows.
As for embroidery itself, there is a large learning curve as with anything. Digitizing can be subbed out until you learn. But it's definitely not plug in play. With all that said I'm glad I'm diversified because if one area hits a slump I have another to lean on. Good Luck in your search

I put 2 links below the first one is for nnep look and see if you are close to either one of these shows.

The first one or emboridery mart has just about every commerical embroidery machine at the show that you can see running.

The secong is put on by swf and only has swf machines there. I bought my machine used from swf the includes a warranty.

http://www.nnep.net/2010_embroidery_mart/Home.php

http://www.embroideryextravaganza.com/

A good starter machine is the Brother PR650/620 or 600II.  You can find them used for about $5,000.  Also the PEDesign software is reasonable at around $800.00 I think.  You can digitize with it quite well.  There are many websites that have online classes that are very reasonable.  Sue Lough at http://www.memories-in-thread.net/?p=terms has very good lessons and tutorials as do other people online.

and Tory is right, it's nice to offer something else and in the long run it has worked out for me.  I started embroidering about 13 years ago with the home embroidery machine type combo.  When people needed stuff it sucked switching colors everytime, plus hats were a bear.  You can get a cap hoop but you have to flatten them and the stitch quality is awful.  There is a lot to learn on the embroidery stuff, not just digitizing but as a whole.  It would be best if you knew someone near you that could help you get started.  Backing, underlay, stitching, repairs, bobbins, threads, applique it's all very overwhelming.  I remember when I got my first machine it sat in the box for a month, I was scared to open it   And that's the truth!!! I knew it was going to be a lot to learn but here I am doing it everyday and loving it 

Good Luck and if there is ever anything I can do to help you along please don't hesistate to ask

Tracee

Not much of an embroidery market anymore when you can screenprint sooooooo much cheaper.

Definitely a market for embroidery. Embroidery is a different media altogether than screenprint. Screenprinting IS cheaper but embroidery has it's place and most times looks much better