A Dremel will get you through your starting phase easily. It can be slow with harder thicker materials but I have made a lot of stuff using a Dremel 3000. For mounting the Dremel I made the following attachment:
Dremel mount.dxf (33.0 KB)
It can cut 6mm Birch Ply, I made a Speed Skate Laptime sign for the Sparkfun 150mm 7 Segement display
Also cutting 0.5mm for an edge lit acrylic sign was no problem.
The main purpose for me to build the machine was for building model airplanes out of balsa and plywood
My plane build log
This summer I reinforced my machine in order to improve accuracy and cut quality, the sound is better and cuts easily through 2mm plywood now.
For me the Dremel works, I only do light enough materials it can handle, no aluminum and only use it for hobby purposes. If I had to earn a living with it I would not choose the Dremel but a real Spindle like the Kress 1050 or Makita700C.