Ditto what Gary said. The atlas controllers will NOT run tortoises properly. The tortoises come with instructions on wiring and you can use SPDT or DPDT toggle switches depending on how you wire them (I use DPDT's myself). I buy these online for about $0.75 each.
The review are right, in my opinion. The atlas under-table machines are difficult to get placed properly and are not durable. Also, the tortoises are much more useful if you want to make good control panels with indicators, signals or other things. It's 50x the product compared to the simple atlas snap-motor with a long arm on it... I definitely recommend the tortoises...
I don't recall them being comparable in price, as you say, though: Last time I looked the Atlas machines were about half the price. If you're seeing the price equal, you're either getting a highway-robbery level price on the Atlas machines, or an incredible deal on the tortoises.. (and in fact, if you can find tortoises for less than $12.00 each please share the source, I need to buy about 50 of them).
There are many threads here covering tortoises, including one by me showing some wiring diagrams for hooking them up. There's also good info at tonystrains.com, as well as on the website of Circuitron, who makes them. I think you can educate yourself on the details of tortoises very quickly.