It's really simple to make a mame cabinet will real arcade controller. One cabinet does all. Or make a mini controller box by hacking a £5 USB controller and have a nice HDMI connection to your big TV.. If you've not tried make recently then it's pretty much perfect for any pre-1995 game.
If there two machines were sitting side by side, I'd have never chosen the atari version over the arcade. Yes, it's interesting for a very short time, and some may like the challenge, but certain games never seemed live up to the arcade.