HI Richard!
Your production spindle turner does a very specific job, thus his selection of tools is only what he needs and I'm sure he is very good at turning spindles with them.
That said, what do you want to do?
If you are doing a lot of spindle work, the selection of tools will be very different than if you do mainly bowls, and this follows for other things like Hollow Forms (HF) etc.
I had the very great experience of meeting Eli Avisera, from Israel, he advocates the right tool for the job, and less use of sandpaper. He doe some amazing work.
I think for spindle work, the skew is the tool one should try to master, it is a hard task master, but the results are unequaled, IMHO.
Get the video from Alan Lacer, about skews, the first one, and watch it, you will be amazed at what he can turn with just the mighty skew
The Harbor Freight or Grizzly mid range set of tools is a good start, I understand a lot of guys go that route and have good results. One thing you have to do with any tool is learn how to sharpen it, and there is a learning curve, so why not learn on cheaper tools.
Cheers!