Waste is totally in the hands of the person operating the machine. I recently demonstrated the Studio for my quilt guild and told them that, since I was quickly doing a demo, I was wasting more fabric than normal - the important part was to use fan folding as a technique and learning to align the fabric for the most efficient cuts.
To the person whose quilt shop required an extra 1/4 yard of fabric to cut squares, that's absolutely ridiculous on their part & sounds more like them trying to earn extra revenue than them actually requiring that much more fabric. You'd need an extra inch, maybe two if the fabric's not on grain, but 9? Insane.
I have all three of AccuQuilt's die cutters, and have to say the Studio has been the most useful, followed by GO! Baby. I cut a queen sized double wedding ring (with the pieced rings) in less than an hour.
My favorite activity was making 20 yards of bias binding in one pass of the Studio cutter. Being able to cut 10 layers of fabric is amazing, and I can't tell you how many more projects I've been able to get done because I have a die cutter.
A lot of projects are easily adapted to the die cutter. One of my friends had a pattern that called for something like 200 1-1/4" strips; she decided to adapt the pattern for 1-1/2" strips since it could be cut with a die that I had.
For the folks who are having problems getting accurate cuts - there are loads of videos out there to help (including my own) but if you're having trouble you can send me a message, or just call AQ customer service - they are VERY helpful!
ebony