Dave,
I'm not sure I get the final direction of your post. First you say the debt isn't bad, then that integrated isn't worth the cost? I'm probably misunderstanding it here.
Anyway, if it wasn't clear, I'm all for the modular route, in order to mitigate risk to yourself and to reduce or eliminate the debt you have to take on.
70K £, that's 142,000 cdn! (or slightly less in US$) I couldn't imagine sinking myself that far into the hole. To me that doesn't sound like a reasonable amount of debt.
Cheers