It amounts to pay me now vs later!!

The amount of product (much less overspray) that you can save with an Iwata vs something like a a DeVillbiss mid line gun or even a Harbor Freight 'purple' will pay for itself in a couple of jobs. Also, with an Iwata, you can use a much smaller compressor as the inlet psig is no more than 16 and the cfm is 9 or less. I have no history with SATA, but they are probably as good.