I bought my Brother 770 on Amazon.. for me, no tax, free shipping. Of course now it's $50 cheaper... grrrr. Well. It is what it is. It's currently $560
http://www.amazon.com/Brother-PE770-.../dp/B002MQI2NM
I'm not sure what the 780 gets you.
I'm also going to be buying some extra hoops on Ebay. There are some generics available including the multi position 5x12 hoop which I'm interested in getting for when I want to make something longer. For under $80 I'll be able to get the whole set... It would make mass producing something a lot quicker. If you want to do two of a design, you can have two hoops going so you would just change hoops after each color change then repeat that color on the second hoop before you move on.