I believe that your dealer wasn't knowledgeable and was covering up for his lack of knowledge by using the head in the sand technique.
Just make sure that you test drive the different machines and find one that fits you and your style. It's more important than buying this or that brand. You might not like the machine I do, it might be noisier or vibrate more than you like. Don't listen to what anyone else says, see for yourself. It's going to be your machine not theirs. I've test driven 8 different machine, of which I'd purchase only one. They are all different, some the prices were insane, Gammill for example, some were too hard to operate, some were heavy and others moved too easy for me.
Good luck with your shopping and I'm sure once you weed through them you'll find YOUR machine.