Well, as long as I can buy Miele and SEBO bagged vacuums, that's all that matters. These two companies want nothing to do with bagless, and never have. They still have plenty of customers. If bagless lovers want to pay good money for Dysons that's up to them. I'm very happy with my Miele's and SEBO's and will not be buying any more bagless machines. I just prefer bagged. Bagless seems to be for the younger generation that have been brought up knowing nothing other than Dyson, and they are quite welcome to Dysons thank you very much.

Super-sweeper - I think TTI have a lot to answer for with the cheap throwaway plastivac market, and whether Dyson came about or not, TTI may have ended up being the world leader in modern vacs - how about that for a scary thought? TTI do not do quality. End of. They do quantity for pile em high and sell it cheap stores like Walmart. Many people cant afford Dysons, and dirty fan cleaners were on the way out anyway in the late 80's and early 90's, especially in the UK, when, by the time Dyson came along in 1993, most vacs were clean fan models.

Dyson has changed the face of vacuum cleaners. Like it or not, they are here to stay, and as long as we can still buy bagged vacs, then each customer is catered for. In the USA, you have many more models of bagged upright than we do in the UK, so you are luckier in that respect, but we are still able to get a fair few bagged canisters here, mainly from the German manufacturers.

The only bagged uprights we get now, are the Sebo X and Felix ranges, the Miele S7 range, Kirbys, Orecks, and a few budget brand models from Panasonic, Hoover(UK) and Electrolux/Zanussi, and come September, most of these will flout the new EU rules for power consumption so could be discontinued without a replacement . Otherwise, its pretty much bagless for uprights.

In the USA you have Tacony, which are a great company who brought manufacturing back to the USA, and produce many models of good quality bagged uprights, so support them and keep them in business. We need to keep buying bagged cleaners to prevent the bagless craze wiping them out for good. Once a vac manufacturer gets in trouble - you know the rest - along comes TTI, buys said company out, lays off staff, and transfers all manufacturing to China. Vax was once a UK owned company who produced vacs in the UK. Along came TTI, and off Vax went to China. Vax now produces NO bagged cleaners for the UK market. Dyson produces solely bagless. Hoover UK produce mainly bagless vacs with a couple of models of bagged canister and one model of bagged upright that's now 17 years old in design. Numatic make bagged tub vacs here in the UK, but no uprights.

As I said earlier, the Germans are saving the day for us in Europe, regarding bagged upright cleaners, they are the best we can get, along with Kirby, as pretty much everything else is bagless and made in the Far East, including Dyson.

"It's not TTI's fault...

...TTI builds vacuums to the retailer's specifications. ....TTI does manufacture the All Metal Royal upright vacuums that are built to last a long time. So you see the blame actually goes to the large chain retail stores."

This is very true. China builds stuff to an agreed price point. If a retailer wants to pay $5-10 for product in mass quantities, China manufacturers will build it at that price point.

I also agree about the abominable American vaccums of a couple of decades ago. When I worked as a janitor, one of our teachers brought in her Regina Housekeeper (yes in pink), and asked me to look at it and see what's wrong. I told her it was just a lousy vacuum and to toss it (she did). They were truly junk.

The Dirt Devils of that era always amazed me. How could a machine spew so much dust when it truly picked up so little?

It's not even the big box stores fault. In the end, consumer drive the market and most consumers want cheap and expect to throw away most appliances in 1-2 years and buy another. Changing bags and filters is so last century and the idea of washing one or more filters and waiting for them to dry is just too much to comprehend.

Every time I sell an Aerus to a younger person, they are amazed that it will last for decades with very little maintenance. Change a bag when the machine shuts off and filters every year or so and if they will do the math, they begin to understand the thrift and frugality that their grandparents knew, buy right - buy once and over time the seemingly expensive purchase is actually quite a bit cheaper. Especially for those who have purchased top dollar Dyson's that barely made it through the warranty period or were too much trouble to have repaired and left a whole bunch of dirt in the carpet.

Dyson has made quality products in the past. My DC07 has always been a dependable machine... it's been demoted to garage/car duty for the most part mostly because I hate the dust storm that cleaning the bin creates. However my DC14 has been nothing but a pain in the ass from day one. More than a dozen clutches replaced under warranty, 7 in the first 9 months and pieces have broken off here and there. Newer ones flex too much and in some cases even break the seal to the bin and at other joins in the plastic.  Dyson did revolutionize the vacuum industry and has made serious coin off of a brilliant marketing effort. My only vacuum regret is letting go of my Fantom Thunder 17 years ago when it was incredibly difficult to source parts, especially the HEPA filters locally and by mail order they were approaching $100 and I just couldn't see it. Of course I saw the error of my thinking about 2 days too late, when I could not find any vacuum that cleaned as well without going to the DTD vendors which I could not afford at the time.

Actually, they are interested and do stock what the consumer wants. Your own post proves it - sales drive what is stocked and sold. If consumers didn't by the dreck on offer, the selection would shift to what they do buy.  Profit drives corporate decisions and consumers provide that profit. It works the same in every market. Notwithstanding the above, clever marketing can and will change consumer perception and therefore influence purchases. Consumers want to believe what the read and see and often do, whether backed by their own experience or not. Even when shown the marketing is manipulating those perceptions, they will cling to them rather than believe they could be manipulated. That is human nature and that is what marketing relies upon.

sebo_fan, we are saying the same thing... ah the joys of English as spoken/used around the empire and former colonies.... none of it comes out quite the same.

I hear you, even in the US, where we have a abundance of choice, we really have few options... I'd rather pick this body, that hose, a specific power nozzle and other attachments I want... we can, in some cases 'upgrade' power nozzles but little else. I personally hate most of Miele's attachments, love the canister and the SEB236 Power nozzle, but I'd rather not have most of the 'toy' attachments that are standard - they are just too small for practical use. At least Miele give you some choices, not many others do. You buy a box and get what you get.

Since Dyson has dominated the UK market, there just doesn't seem to be much appetite to compete with him. Only TTI can be bothered, and they only compete on price, not quality. The UK is in desperate need of quality machines that last more than a few months. Many people fail to register the warranty on their TTI machine within 30 days of purchase and are then left high and dry when it packs up after a few months. This is why we see so many TTI machines on ebay that are not even a year old, for spares or repairs.

The other thing that I wonder about is that people buy a Miele vacuum, then moan about the price of the bags and filters (even I do sometimes). These people then buy the cheapest, nastiest bags on the market to use in their brand new S6, S8 machines, and then when the HEPA filter starts popping out of its housing in use, and forces the lid up, they moan about it like its the machine's fault, when all that's happened is that the cheap bags have let too much dirt through them and its clogged the HEPA filter very quickly. IE, they haven't followed the manufacturers instructions about using only genuine Miele bags.

So its not just bagless machines that people cant seem to look after, its bagged too, and all because they are too tight fisted to buy the proper parts for their new vacs, or they cant be bothered to maintain them.

Its like this - would you buy a brand new BMW, and then use inferior and cheap engine oil in it? Or put remoulded tyres on it? If so, why not just buy a cheap car and put cheap oil in it?

Its the same with Miele - if you don't want to buy the genuine bags and filters - why not just buy a cheap £30 bagged canister from Argos, then throw it away when it burns out after 6 months of using inferior bags?

Funny you should talk about the Elite - one of our collectors, Alex has just imported one of these himself, he really loves them, and again, he had to repair it as the fan was shattered.

Worst vacuum ever. The power switch gave up the ghost in fewer than 6 months and the cover for the hose hole never sealed well and would whistle and lose suction. And it was NOISY.

That's because the Elite seemed to be made with a brittle metal fan, whereas the Turbopower 1 had a tough plastic fan, much like the Kirby, which would withstand a lot more abuse. Having seen the state of your Elite's fan when it arrived with you, I did have a laugh at what was left of it.

"That's what makes me laugh the most about bagless vacuums. Disposable paper bags were put in to make vacuums easier to empty and more hygenic, and then we took them away again and made them messy and dirty again? Talk about a step backward!"

Actually, I think they're a couple of steps backward. Most cloth shakeout bag machines aren't that messy to empty, and "filter cleaning" consists of shaking the bag well before emptying (washing it every once in a great while). By the time you get all the filters cleaned, brushed out, beaten against the garbage can, washed, and air dried for 24 hours, you're much farther behind in the game. I have owned 2 bagless machines in my life, and I won't own another one. Shakeout bags, on the other hand, aren't bad to deal with, and a good cheap, effective option if you properly maintain them.

My brother now has a BMW convertible - the last car he had was an Audi A3, 2.0 TDi, and it was forever breaking down. He said it was the worst car he had ever owned, and he drives his cars hard. Over 100K miles, and it was needing money spending every other month on something or another failing, usually the turbocharger.

Now that he has his BMW 3 series (2011 model) he loves it - says its so much better than the Audi. So not all German cars are wonderful.

A bit like Vorwerk and SEBO - one great, and the other not so great - but both expensive German vacs.