I first discovered Berninas when I worked for a dealer who made her bread and butter doing custom dressmaking and alterations. I purchased a 1260 from her with a hefty employee discount. That was more than 20 years ago and I wore that machine out. Over the years I have had an opportunity to trade up but always went back to my 1260. I also have one of the first stand alone embroidery machines that Bernina sold. It still runs but I can no longer get software for it easily. I recently added a Brother embroidery machine to my colleciton as it uses the same software as the Bernina embroidery machine with the additional USB capacity that makes it possible to use the software from the older machine. When the wider stitch width became available on the Berninas I stuck with my 1260 because the straight stitch was more consistant without the wider stitch and the feed dogs worked better on narrow items like straps or binding etc. The only kind of machine quilting I do is on Linus quilts that are no bigger than twin bed size. On those I do simple grid pattern done with a decorative stitch at least 5 inches apart over all. ONe thing I don't like about the newer Berninas including the Artista 185 I purchased used from my local dealer when my 1260 finally gave up the ghost is the protective shield over the threading area. All of their machines have it now. When I asked the dealer why, they said someone got their hair caught in the older version without the shield. I still have trouble threading the machine because of that stupid thing.
If you plan to do mainly piecing with your sewing machine I recommend that you don't get the one with the wider stitch capacity. It is a lot less expensive. Another thing that burned me is the feet from my 1260 will not fit the newer machines because of the self threading feature. I had literaly a thousand + dollars tied up in specialty feet for my 1260 that won't fit the newer machines. Unless you plan on doing a lot of machine quilting of adult size bed quilts I wouldn't put the money into the larger harp either. Just my two cents.