That makes sense. I've got a few machines now including some older rotaries, so not worried about using one. I'll look at costs of the machines and see if I can justify it.They do sell extension bars for them.
However.
If you're shooting for really tight spaces, dont bother. You'll need a new machine. Consider the 'throw' of the machine (in other words, how far left-right, up-down in a sense) it is going to move. If you reduce the pad size, the throw wont become less so a smaller pad will be really quite unstable (ask me how I know). This is where the mini machines will work a lot better.
All depends on budget vs what you're shooting for. I bought a mini rotary for a job I had coming up and it was a lifesaver. Albeit rotary is quite a different beast.