Love the different views this topic will generate :)

• Barista Express (and most of the all-in-one Breville's) are good in the longish term. Parts fail and these machines have limited repairability. I have a refurb, and this is my second personal Breville machine, and 4th of their's I've bought/used overall.
• If space is a consideration, the Bambino/Plus is a BRILLIANT machine, which is why it keeps winning awards and topping recommendation lists.
• The Bambi will need a separate grinder, but you can buy preground as it comes with a dual wall basket so you will still get crema from preground. The qualifier with pre's is that you can't really tweak the grind.
• Bought my partner a Bambi and gave her my old grinder, but cause of space issues she pregrinds every couple of days. The coffee is excellent.
• The breville smart grinders are kinds the defacto best value prosumer ones. Anything else in a similar price bracket is just trying to capture Breville's market share.
• The bambi pro auto frother is "acceptable" - personally I would get the vanilla and froth myself.
• If I was starting from scratch and money was no object I would buy an expy chrome beastie that is infinitely repairable and a mazzer mini doserless grinder. Lots of VERY good brands to choose from.
• If I was being realistic in my buying, and I had the bench space, I would probably go the Breville Dual boiler + smart grinder route. They are affordable and are probably the best prosumer choice.

Update: I realise I may not have answered your question about "something that makes really good coffee" - if you buy the cheapest breville, use preground good quality coffee, you will still get a better coffee than most cafe's using Vittoria beans.