Walter Harley wrote:
This might be an unanswerable or simply a religious question, in which case
I apologize...

Should I get a set of cheap end mills, or should I gradually acquire more
expensive ones? (Or both?)

For light duty work on soft materials, the Chinese end mills work fine
(at least the ones that I have). One thing that I did find very useful
is a decent quality roughing mill. I have a 3/8 M2 end mill that eats
aluminum like butter. I use that for major material removal and then use
end mills from my Chinese set to do the finishing and details. For a
hobbyist, it's a good low-cost solution.

-Greg