pinkCastleDH,
In my collection I have:
Vibrating shuttles
Rotary hooks
Oscillating hooks
The VS machines are noisy and do indeed vibrate a lot. This is because of several things. The shuttle carrier arm swings back and forth very fast under the bed. The needle bar does a little hop at the bottom of each stitch stroke which makes the stitch lock. You can actually watch the little hop as you turn the hand wheel slowly.
But they do make wonderful stitches. I have 6 of them. Each has their own personalities. The noisiest is my Franklin 1911 in her parlor cabinet. The cabinet acts as a megaphone and magnifies the noise, but she sews good so who cares. My little Minnesota A will walk right through heavy layers and seams of denim that will bring our newer Singers and other to a dead stall. I use this one for piecing denim quilt parts. She just will not stop.
The Oscillating hooks do exactly what they say. The bobbin hook oscillates back and forth to make the stitch.
They work great, are quieter and are found everywhere. They come in side and front loading, vertical loading and horizontal drop in loading, and just work.
You can do all your sewing on one and never know you missed anything. Cos you didn't really.
The Rotary hooks do exactly what they say too. The bobbin hook simply rotates around and around as you sew.
They are "generally" the quietest of the designs and have the least vibrations. Not always but generally.
They also come in vertical end and front loading and drop in designs as well.
From what I've read here, the best for FMQ and machine embroidery are the machines with vertical loading bobbins. The thread simply stays in the vertical plane as it goes around the bobbin. That puts less stress on the thread and that makes it easier to keep the tension consistent.
In the horizontal bobbin machines the thread goes from vertical to horizontal, around the bobbin then back to vertical to complete the stitch. Supposedly that works the thread too much and causes tension and other troubles.
I do not have any experience to prove or disprove any of this, I'm just reporting what I've read.
I like them all and in my limited sewing I've found some that work better than others at various things. Each has it's purpose.
Joe