I spent more than a year assigned to a new EE (about a year old) when I was in my apprenticeship, so I am relatively familiar with them. Both the cross feed and longitudinal feed can be engaged simultaneously, as this discussion disclosed. If one could alter the ratio, it would be a pretty nice feature, but as it is, it's just a novelty more than anything.
I've always coveted the EE (and later Monarchs in general) but they were well beyond my ability to buy when I started my humble shop back in '67. Base price for an EE, then, was about $10,000, and that included almost nothing. You still had to buy chucks and other accessories that you'd need. By sharp contrast, my Sag 12 Graziano cost me about $4,700, with change gears (in addition to the quick change, to extend its ability), wrenches, spanner wrenches, face plate, dog plate, an 8" three jaw with master jaws and two sets of hard jaws, and a 10" four jaw, plus the added feature of a two speed motor (which doubled the speed range) which was not offered with the machine when I bought mine. They apparently started offering the two speed some time later, as there are others on the market, but they are not common. They are a very nice machine, but they are not an EE.
The feel of an EE, at least the one I ran, is beyond the feel of other machines. They are built robustly, yet delicately. The carriage is huge (width) compared to other 12" machines, and the ways are quite small. Hand wheels are fragile in appearance, but the machine is extremely robust. The spindle is just a D1-3, but an EE is far more rigid than the Sag 12 Graziano, which has a D1-4 spindle and larger ways. Overall weight, however, finds the Graziano lacking by more than 1,000 pounds when they are compared. I consider the EE to be the finest toolroom lathe built in the US. Others may or may not agree.
H