David
I have experience of both the iTel and SLOOH telescopes as I do not have my own kit. I do not have my own kit because of the hassle of looking after the site, the dome, the telescope, insurance, computer hardware, software, internet access etc. I can understand why people might be concerned about setting up a BAA telescope from scratch. If it must be a BAA telescope then I would probably recommend an existing telescope farm to cover most of these hassles at , I think, about £300-400 a month. That still leaves the issue of organising how individual users will get time on the instrument.
The other option is to subsidise members using iTEL or SLOOH ( or others). SLOOH offers five targets per night for $300 a year with various filters depending on their eight telescopes. I do VS observing. Sites are available in both hemispheres. This route seems to be the lowest risk to get started as there is an easy way to bail out if it all goes wrong.
The AAVSOnet instruments do run well for periods but then stop for a long time as equipment goes down. Its a bit mixed in my experience.
Stewart Bean (SLOOH member and ex iTEL member)