What do you really get for a $350 desk top engraver ?

The Bell-Everman drive is a nice system, but you need to put any reduction upstream/ahead of the pinion.  As Tommy pointed out the 72T idlers won't reduce anything.

A low-backlash, helical gear reducer between the motor and the pinion is the way to go.

And if you've got the space for some extra carriage length, the 'Loop-track' system brom B-E is really nice.

Like this one I built for a couple of plasma tables.

In these photos the motor is mocked up directly on the pinion, but we wound up using a 10:1 reducer between the motor and pinion.

Belt was T5, pinion was 15T (bought T5 15T bar stock).  Mr. Everman pointed out on CNCZone years ago that only T-series belt teeth/valleys are symmetrical - HTD and GT2/GT3 have non-meshing teeth.
 

the biggest problem is the machine is built already and space is limited. if i could do any kind of reduction it would probably have to hang out to the side but if i could come up with a way now i know i can put whatever size on the open loop side and increase the circumference to get more engagement. i think the belt is compressing under load with a tiny 24 tooth pulley. so if it is doing it on the open loop belt side a bigger set on the other side would be a good idea too i think if it's even possible my fear is i painted myself into a corner

i will have to dig some more and look at the stuff you suggested in more depth thanks for the feedback

straight cuts work just fine but cutting a contour is where things get weird shows up looking like chatter when trying to finish. it is so close to being there but needs a little help to get that little extra bit of stiffness needed

It is possible to build a belt driven reduction that mounts in place of a NEMA23 motor. I did it here (but using a pinion.)
forum.linuxcnc.org/30-cnc-machines/31509...inion-drive?start=20

i think one thing that i could try to see if things improve would be to swap out 36V power supplies for some 48V supplies i think i have 4 of them in another box that i can steal or borrow just to see if it improves and with some extra power?

it might be that the X axis is under powered compared to the tandem Y axis and that could be why it shows up on contour cutting? that would be pretty easy to do and not redesign things from the ground up in the process It might point me in a particular direction?

That is worth testing, stepper systems at low speeds do not benefit from higher voltage, but at higher speeds the difference is huge.
BTW, low speed for a Nema23 stepper is under 150-200RPM some up to 500, from there the torque drops like a rock, so any added voltage helps a lot.