Where have you seen comments about being a sucker for buying a gun drill?
Gun drills are widely used in industry when a long, straight, medium-high tolerance hole is required. I believe that at 10xDiameter a gun drill is suggested when drilling steel. Wood, being much more prone to bit wander and ovoid holes requires a better solution than a twist-bit or forstner bit well before 10D...if you want an accurate hole. Boring bars are arguably higher tolerance, if you have dead-nuts alignment and no vibration. You also need an extremely long drill bit and extreme travel on your feed. A gun drill is self-aligning if the initial bore has been made correctly.
$200 is basically the door fee. You will be adding cost to that to get it set up for your machine.
