For home, I'd recommend buying and mastering a manual machine.

The results speak for themselves, you'll get a better coffee out of a $600 manual espresso machine and $200 burr grinder than an $8000 automatic.

I've got a Rancilio Silvia espresso machine and Rancilio Rocky burr grinder, with a stainless base station and it cost me $1250. I will put money on my coffee bettering that of 99% of cafe's out there, as well as 100% of automatic machines.

As you go up in price, you'll get more consistency between shots, and repeatability in a large number of shots...for example, I can't pull 20 shots in a row with my machine without waiting for temps to stabilise, but with a machine thats maybe $2,500 (plus grinder) and has dual boilers or single boiler/heat exchanger, it'll do it.

It all comes down to the quality of the bean, the grind, the distribution and the tamp. You can own a $20,000 Synesso Cyncra PID-Controlled, rotary pump, 4 group machine, but if you use pre-ground coffee, shit beans or a shit grinder, the coffee won't even be as good as a $250 home machine.

For work, automatic or drip coffee if you're not phased about espresso's. This also comes down to how many coffees a day... the more coffees, the heavier duty the equipment has to be.

Simple as that