Ignore these people, they're idiots. Unfortunately there seems to be a vocal minority of people, particularly on places like faceache and reddit, who think that you need to totally gut any airsoft gun to make it usable and this couldn't be further from the truth. The most I've done to my AEGs is changing the hop rubber.
The specna arms guns are a great choice and even the most budget friendly Core range are solid guns which are better quality than some similarly priced guns, eg the cyma 5XX lines with their bodies made from recycled ready meal trays
One the subject of PPE, get some gloves too especially for cqb as hits to the hand/knuckles bloody hurt