Stick is better for a lot of heavy welding, but is harder to learn and very messy, but you can weld a lot of stuff that the MIG would need a ton of prep work to weld on, yeah, dirty rusty stuff.
I think in a perfect world you would get a 200V MIG with a gas bottle, and a good used stick welder, you can usually pick up the later for cheap used, the sticks cost money and they do NOT last forever, you must keep them dry!!
The MIG welder can run both solid core wire (you need a gas cylinder for this wire) and you can weld with flux core wire, that does not need any shielding gas, this will work better on dirty metal and will work outside if there is a breeze.
The MIG welder is easy to learn and easy to run, dead easy, I tell my friends that I could teach their wives to run a decent bead in 30 minutes, and I'm not joking, yes there is a lot more to it than that, but for basic stuff that most of us do they rock!
Also you don't have to use the argon/CO2 mix gas, I use straight CO2 as I get mostly used cylinders from our draught beer machines
it burns a bit hotter and has more splatter, but it is way cheaper!