CP, nice! It reminds me of my own machine when I started it - mounted on 2 x 4 pieces of wood and held down with C clamps.
I also use Protel for my PCB prototypes. I export to .DXF and then manually trace it on AutoCAD. I recently purchased Rhino so will be trying that route next. It didn't work for me but many folks use
Eagle to isolate Gerber files and export a routable DXF. Halfway down
this posting on my machine log are a couple of pics of one of my prototypes. I've gotten them to come out sharper now by trying different types of cutters, as you also suggest.
Later,
JR