OP here: Teknic Clearpath servos are considered good value and come in lots of different sizes/price points. Wiring them up could not be simpler, but know that you need a windows computer to tune them.
If you are comfortable with soldering, motor sizing, and python, you can pick up an ODrive control board and some sort of position sensor and turn almost any motor into a servo motor.
I've purchased a couple of these for UT CNC systems; definitely good bang for your buck, but that's if you need to drive a 1200 lb bridge at 6 in/s, and have $600 per motor to spend.
I ended up not using them because I found it was simpler, cheaper, and fit the mounts better to buy a pack of NEMA34 steppers and a few $15 dollar encoders. Seriously, spent maybe $800 on decent quality steppers/encoders/amps for 3 axes, where the ClearPath servos would have been $1600 for the same 3 axes, but wouldn't have provided position feedback nor allowed position localisation to be decoupled from the motors (which is the best way to do things in most cases).
I think it's hard to justify the costs of these types of motors unless you have some very specific torque/speed/spacial requirements that require them. If you're building a machine that is worth >$4000 per axis, then maybe, but if not, simple steppers are the way to go.
If you are comfortable with soldering, motor sizing, and python, you can pick up an ODrive control board and some sort of position sensor and turn almost any motor into a servo motor.