Great topic
I think for me personally, I will take the middle ground. Find a good used wood lathe OR fix the one I got OR buy a new one. Either way, get a good working wood lathe for drilling, turning and sanding purposes. Other than that, after getting it tooled up I would buy w/e I needed to make stems.
To be, honest I could buy any metal lathe I wanted to right now but I've made one pipe and I cannot justify spending that kind of money on something I do not even know if I'll truly excel at. So having that middle ground equipment and still be able to make just as good of pipes as anyone else seems like a obvious choice for a beginner or novice pipe maker.
And if down the line a year or so I end up being a pretty great pipe maker or have the potential to be then I will probably have no problem buying a metal lathe. Thanks to everyone for their input, been a good read