This falls into the "good problem to have" catagory. A friend wants your advice on how to begin his/her hifi journey. Sure beats someone seeking advice on prostate surgery.
I can follow your logic here. You want to recommend something that brought a great deal of musical enjoyment in your life and you want to share that experience with a friend. It is a valid refererence to sound quality, functionality, and build quality. What’s not to like about this piece?
It’s hard for others to get inside your head and figure out what’s driving your motivations. Your intentions are honorable, and rational. Or, is bang for the buck sound quality and reliability a stronger motiviator? A short conversation with your coworker will reveal the answer.
That being said, my tech of 25+ years and I still spend one day a week trying to keep good older equipment from going into the dumpster. We recently serviced what I fondly refer to as the "Marlboro Man Turntable." A Pioneer belt-drive unit with nicotine stains embedded on everything on, around, and under the platter. It, literally, took Turtle Wax Bug and Tar Remover to get it all off. Needless to say, we’ve seen alot of vintage gear come across our bench(es). Dormant 40+ year-old gear can be a bit of a crap shoot. I’ve seen examples where dirty controls and switches triggered the death sentence for the original owner of a good classic pieces that were delegated to a garage sale and sold for the price of a set of used Tupperware. The pieces were, fortunately, rescued by someone who saw some potential in the pieces, and got them to us. $55 later, the units are up and running. And sounding as good as 40-year-old parts can sound. And, yes, we do performance upgrades to get them sounding better than new!
As these vintage units are "exercised", stuff starts happening. Sometimes good. Sometimes not so good. Pushing high voltage heats things up that haven’t seen anything warmer than a hot attic in years. So, you might have 20+ years, or 20+ minutes before failure. The only way to find our for sure is to power it up, hook it up to a load a put it to work.
As @lhasaguy states. WHO you buy from matters. In the hands of competant techs who apply their knowledgeable hands (and brains) and put the unit through it’s paces, the risk of (short term) failure approaches pretty close to zero. And you, and your coworker, can still be friends.
A valid question for your coworker would be to determine if they listen to off-air broadcasts. If not, then the presence of a tuner is not a priority. The cost and real estate committed to a tuner section can be used for bigger/better parts in an integrated amplifier. There have been many good recommendations on this thread. Vintage and otherwise.
Best of luck.