We're babysitting a cat for the next 8 months or so. He's been with us for two weeks now. When he first checked out the DC11 it was parked in my computer room in its "wrapped-up" mode. The cat was already leary of it! It took him about five minutes to comfortably walk around it. Maybe he was just in awe.

Comment on the Sebo: It may have the best brush and/or heads, but if it uses a bag (any bag) then it's going to lose suction after the first few minutes - no ifs or buts about it. So while I don't disagree that it might clean very well at first, its performance is sure to drop. For it to be any more successful than any other bag-type vac, it would have to be able to run with low suction power. Using its head to loosen any crap in the carpet and then allowing the very reduced suction to still pick it all up.

I think the Dyson does require a certain amount of "get it" factor. But so do many other higher-end vacuums. I wouldn't waste a single cent on any Hoover or Eureka product, but I'm sure many people do every year. With consumable sales I'm sure they make huge profits - their vaccums are in fact consumables themselves, being built out of inferior components and materials (they look and feel like they'll break when you first turn them on).

I'm extremely happy with the Dyson. I'd like to see them come out with a central unit for North America as well as a Wet-Dry (bucket) model (Dyson licensed his cyclone technology to Johnson Wax for a few years who built one of these for commercial use).

The Dyson 1997 autobiography was a really good read. He's had to put up with a lot of crap for all his more recent good fortune.

Bruno