I'm glad you had a good experience with your first guild meeting. They have a lot to offer and you will just have to ignore any snide remarks you may get from some of the members. While I am a died in the wool handquilter I do machine quilt my children's items and Linus etc. I belong to two large guilds. Both of them have several semi to professional long armers as members. Because of them the guilds are able to turn out large volumes of quilts. Both guilds hold bingos as fund raisers. Members will contribute up to 50 small quilts as Bingo prizes as well as lots of items for doorprizes etc. That much production would not be possible without machine quilters. It takes me at minium six weeks to quilt a bed size quilt. A good longarmer or even home machine quilter can turn out at least a dozen quilts in that time period. If you have a chance to attend any large quilt shows you will discover that machine quilting reigns.
You can learn a lot from a guild that is able to provide speakers, workshops etc. Enjoy!