I've never taken a class for my quilt machine and right at the beginning I knew freemotion was going to be a challenge for me as I have hand tremors. Even using a ruler and having the foot up against it I couldn't be sure my hand wouldn't jerk off it so went with robotics from the get go. I started off with a 9" throated machine and PCQ, moved up to a retrofitted PCQ/MQR. Then moved up to an 18" machine using the same robotics. Finally got myself a 26" machine and upgraded the same robotics (MQR). Even with robotics you need to know your machine and what its capable of doing. With robotics you need to place your machine/needle to where you want to place your pattern, calculate the distance if you're doing an E2E, etc.
I'm now going to try ruler work again as I'd like to add to or fill in the dead space that is too much trouble to do in my opinion with robotics. I do enjoy the creating of the quilting layouts and/or quilt patterns themselves using a program called ProQ Designer.
I admire those who can do freemotion quilting and am in awe of what some create free hand. I quilt for myself mainly, occasionally I'll do one for one of my quilting neighbors..............stressing out that I might make a mistake on it but so far I've been lucky. They seem to be happy with the outcome and that makes me strive on to better myself with my quilting whether its with robotics, freemotion or ruler work.