No need to bother with a bending machine, David. I think your skills on a bending iron are fine if your can reverse a cutaway bend and still have a single piece of wood. There's probably more potential to bend sides wrong in a machine, because you aren't looking at the wood as you're doing it. It's a good building system and a good system of work that prevents you from making mistakes like that.
Investing in sharpening is a good idea. Having tried just about everything, if you want no fuss sharp, diamond plates are the way to go. I use DMT's blue and green coded stones with a Veritas honing guide and nothing else (no strops etc.). Not the cheapest, but no maintenance (like waterstones), fast and you'll only ever have to buy them once.
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