Thank you everyone for your replies. My daughter came over this weekend with an old "Crock Watcher" (precursor to the Crock Pot I guess) she inherited from her aunt. It is from the 70's and still cooks like a champ...not too hot like a lot of the newer, light-bottomed pots of today. Looking at the way her unit is built tipped the scales in favor of keeping my Singer 401a...The old adage..."They don't build them like they used to" is so true...I think the Singer has many years of great service left and if there is something it can't do...well, I guess I can go try my daughter's new machine.