Manual placement aids are often very similar, I would suggest it is quite difficult to tell them all apart. Most of them include some kind of carousel for bins of loose parts and have the option of a few tape "feeders". If you are building small volumes of simple product they work fine but bear in mind the downsides: Human placement accuracy limited capacity Human error for placement location if there is no laser guidance reliance of being able to read silkscreen markings Need for regular access to datasheet for pinouts/orientation (not always easy to tell) If you really manage 400cph I'd say you were doing well. Work rate is hard to maintain, I speak from experience you really cannot do this all day. Speed and accuracy go out of the window, attention wanders... Fine pitch is quite hard, some machines do have assistance for this e.g http://www.lpkf.com/products/rapid-pcb-prototyping/smd-assembly/smt-assembly/pick-and-place.htm typically with a feature to lock XY and then use a camera and fine tuning screws to dial in the placement.
In the UK available machines come from Fritsch,Essemtec, Dima and DDM Novastar there are several mickey mouse version on eBay too.
I still use a manual screen printer for all our work this includes products with 0.4mm pitch qfp's and TLA05 micro BGA's. I get very good consistent printing but it does take some time to get a 'feel' for it. Manual printers come in a bewildering array of options including those that can handle the small freebie stencils you get with prototype PCB's. These start at the basic clamshell and move up to those with vertical seperation, PCB fixtures and a powered squeegee. At around £6k/$10k however you can get semi automatic printers with camera aids or even refurbished fully automatic models.
If you gave us an idea of volume, product complexity etc I'm sure those of us who have worked at this end of the spectrum could advise on your best course.
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