I have the 830 and I plan on a longarm in the future for the reasons you state. I would NOT want to be moving it around and I really don't want to use it as a 'long arm'. I bought it for my personal use and embroidery features. I don't want to wrack up the stitch count that an industrial long arm is built to handle. I love my 830 and I know there is quilting software to automate the machine on a frame, but honestly, I'd rather have a separate, dedicated long arm machine for quilting only.