Welcome! You have come to the right place if you are seeking advice. From the looks of your pictured results, I think you need to sharpen your gouge(s) and also learn how to float the bevel - Appears you are approaching the wood with the tool in a scraper orientation , rather than letting the bevel float on the wood before lifting the tool handle until the cutting edge begins to cut. (ABC of turning - Anchor, Bevel, Cut) It looks much like the same results I often get on my Harbor Freight lathe when my tools start to get dull and I'm too stubborn to stop turning and go sharpen.... They want to rip and scrape and tear away wood fibers instead of cutting cleanly.
A higher quality lathe may be more resistant to allowing the wood or project to flex or wiggle, so it could be more forgiving of beginner use, but a properly sharpened tool properly presented to the spinning wood, you could get a nice clean cut even if you just had a home made lathe built from a half inch drill and some ball bearings... OTOH, a poor quality lathe kind of does force one to become more proficient in sharpening and tool usage, so that moving on to the likes of a Robust or OneWay, those hard learned habits may result in quicker results with less sanding at the end... IMHO (Maybe after I finally upgrade to that Jet I am dreaming of, I could kind of prove that idea out... after honing my skills on the Harbor Freight lathe I have now...)
