All the machines are good. It's buyer's choice.
The gossip I heard - SVP is not the best at even answering dealers questions. Plus a lot of dealers wanted no part of Singer. Singer made a mess when they bought Pfaff in the 80s or thereabouts.
Brother and Janome allow internet/big box sales and dealers who didn't sell the machines are expected to do warranty work or some such.
Babylock does do dealer support, and very well.
Babylock, Pfaff, Viking, Bernina only sell through dealers.
A lot of the bad press came from embroidery software. Most software was geared to XP. and when Vista came out, there was a royal mess. Dealers needed help to even begin to help customers. If the manufacturers had a problem with the software, it made it really hard for dealers to keep customers happy.