DP,
He can buy a Star for £150k and have very low costs - far lower then the TB or Arrow. In the end, leaving £100k aside for maintenance is not smart in my opinion - that money could be invested, or at least used to buy an aircraft that'll hold its value. The maintenance bill on a TB9 could be higher than £100k anyway over that time - no doubt some more ADs will come into force.
Let's be fair, the logic of spending £50k on relatively old technology is normal in GA, but anywhere else it would be laughed at. The sales of the TB, Cessna and Piper ranges have been going down for a reason.
This is 2005 after all - let's keep it that way.
Conf
PS: The reason I'm saying all this is simple - we have GA pilots saying that the standard aircraft are unreliable, inefficent and sometimes dangerous (card heat & icing issues). The more we buy the old style aircraft, even the secondhand ones, we're essentially saying 'Go ahead, keep using 50's technology - we're guillible enough to keep buying it!
The Cessnas, Pipers, TBs et al are only 'good enough'. And would wants to pay far over the odds for that? Volunteers?