I took a class with Doug Leko of Antler Quilt Design, and he loves the Reliable iron. He said the company has replaced his iron 3 times. From the reading I've done on this, the nice thing is that you can have the temperature on the sole plate low and still have a lot of steam, because the iron has separate heating elements (or something like that).
I don't usually use steam. I either spritz my fabric with water or Best Press (depending on what kind of crispness I want my fabric to have). I use a Continental iron, which is a steamless iron with a solid soleplate. I purchased it because I had started doing fusible applique and was frustrated by the little steam holes that I kept missing when I was fusing. I purchased the Continental on Amazon.com for around $40.
For the problem with getting the fusible off your iron, I have found that used fabric softener sheets (the non-woven, not the spongy kind) work great. Let the iron cool off a little and iron over used fabric softener sheets. It takes it right off. If you have fusible on your ironing board, place the used sheet on the ironing board and press.