It really depends on your budget to be honest with you. I have a Juki 2000 for piecing. Love, love, love my Juki. It has a 9" throad. There is also a Janome and a Brother on either end of the price range, Brother being on the low and Janome being more. Oh, and Viking Huskvarnia has one too with a 9" throat.
If you have more money and only want something for free motion quilting, you can get a sit down quilt machine. I have a Tin Lizzie. There are several companies that sell them. Bailey Home Quilter is the least expensive. They did not sell a sit down table for the Bailey when I bought my Lizzie. I probably would have done the Bailey to save 2k but I do love my Lizzie.
There will be people who love their machines. My thoughts - chances are you will love whatever you end up getting and it's all relative. You can spend thousands or hundreds. It's all up to your budget.
If you can, try them all out before you buy. If you have a big quilt show like the AQS shows coming up, it's a great place to try out everything all at once.
http://www.sewingexpo.com/Home.aspx or
http://aqsshows.com/ are probably the bigger ones. I'm sure there are others out there but those two usually have all of the machine manufacturers present - especially Paducah for us Southerners. They'll be coming to Chatanooga next year too but if you are like me, it would be hard to wait to buy one.