I love hand embroidery, too, but machine embroidery has it's place, too. For Christmas one year, I machine embroidered big fluffy bath towels for all 10 of my nieces and nephews. For each child, I chose a motif that fit their personality or interests, in addition to adding their names. They were a big hit.. Another year, I embroidered sweatshirts and fleece jackets for each of them. I made sure to buy them plenty big, so they could wear them more than one season. It was fun for them to have something personalized,(especially the younger kids, who often wear hand-me-downs) and they wore them until they simply no longer fit. These are both applications where hand embroidery just wouldn't have the same outcome. I still love to hand stitch dish towels and embellish quilt squares, but i also love my machine.
I've also noticed that Urban Threads sells their embroidery motifs as Machine or hand embroidery, you might give that a shot if you're looking for something a little more modern that the iron on packets they make for dishtowels.
http://urbanthreads.com