In business, we taught what was called the 80% rule. Essentially,
20% of the time/cost/effort will result in 80% of the desired goal. The remaining 20% will take all the rest of the resources. It holds true in a shop, kitchen or construction as well as in the officeplace.There is a reasonable level of tools and tool quality needed to efficiently do a job. I never warmed up to the Shopsmith-type of multitool, since I felt I'd be spending all my time setting it up, rather than just walking over to the right tool and doing something. I built a whole lot of stuff in my lifetime, with a lot of it made using a Sears contractor's saw as my primary shop tool.
When I finally built a dedicated shop for my woodworking hobby, I first kept the old Sears saw, adding a Sears RAS for crosscuts and a Sears compound miter saw for bevels and angles. It was only later that I sold the old contractor's saw and got a PM66. Another tool that I feel was irreplaceable was my 6 X 48" table belt sander with the 10" disk sander. I got a 12" Delta planer later on. For shaping, I first used an inverted Makita 1/2" router on a home made bench, but even after going with a floor-mounted shaper, I still used it a lot more than the shaper.
What's important, IMHO, is not so much the quality or expense of your equipment, it's how well they're set up and aligned, how sharp the blades are and how comfortable you feel using them.