I have no words of wisdom to give you. But you are an excellent writer. I tried not as intensely as you did to quilt on my sewing machine. Nor could I picture myself quilting the huge queen sized quilt (my first top ever made) so it was folded, placed in a box and left out in a barn for 14 years! I did small quilts baby quilts. But dreamed of doing bigger quilts. I found out you could pay people to quilt it for you! I finished my BOM and decided to make it a king sized quilt to fit my bed. I was so happy with the results that I made another large quilt (well larger than a baby blanket but really only an oversized lap quilt) sent that to a long arm quilter too. Then I realized that part of the art was doing the quilting. I found out about Baileys Home Quilter and obsessed about getting one. Decided to talk to hubby and he said go ahead. I purchased one BHQs aren't as expensive as regular quilting machines and aren't as big mine is a 17 inch model including the frame it was around $3500, something like that. There was a learning curve and some frustration and potty mouth words said, but now we get along. Now I feel as though I owe it to our pocket book to make good use of the machine and must quilt MANY quilts on it to truly make it affordable per quilt.
All that said I feel your pain.