Hi, the twist drill quality will make a lot of difference. The sensitivity of the drilling machine shouldn't be too great an issue for that size of twist drill, IMO, provided your not using a "Bill Massive" machine. A good quality bench drill of the 1/2" type should be able to be used quite successively, while using suitable coolant/lubrication.
Many years ago I used to get an annual major maintenance job which entailed making up 144 5/16" mild steel rods, where each end had a 3/32" hole drilled for a split pin. I used to cut all the rods to length and dress the ends. I had a piece of square bar which was drilled down the end by about 1/2" to fit the rods snugly and a 3/32" hole was drilled cross-ways through the hole at the distance the holes had to be drilled in from the ends of the rods. This square bar was case hardened and was set up in the drill vice with the 3/32" cross hole lined up with twist drill in the chuck. All the rod ends were then spotted to the width of the drill in this square jig. The jig was then removed and the vice jaws set far enough apart to allow the twist drill to have the same clearance each side, but close enough to support the rods. Each rod end was then held by hand on the vice jaws and were drilled. A little soluble cutting oil mix was squirted on each one from a washing up liquid bottle to help cutting and the drill was withdrawn frequently to clear the swarf.
I could drill all these rods both ends using only one twist drill and without re-sharping it, and that was a total of 288 holes, and still had the twist drill to drill more holes in other things. We used Dormer twist drills at that time FWIW.
Regards Nick.