Personally, I find Viking not only sturdy but easy to use, smooth and very intuitive. By intuitive you don't necessarily need to look up every little thing to make magic happen with your sewing projects. I started with an Emerald 118, traded up to an Opal 670 and now after 4 months of non-stop sewing have decided that I need the top of the line Viking sewing machine and am trading up again to the Sapphire 960Q, specifically designed with quilters in mind but also heirloom and decorative sewists like myself. No, it does not have a built in walking foot, but it has sooooooo many different attachments to choose from! You can use a decorative stitch to do a large embroidery pattern by using the circular stitch guide and save thousands of dollars if you dont necessarily want to invest in an embroidery machine or do not do a lot of embroidery. As far as going to a dealer or distributor, I have found the salespeople at the Viking Gallery extremely helpful and willing to gather facts, answers and help with anything I need. I have been taking a quilting class and for the heck of it I used the Pfaff 4.2 Quilt Expression. I found it very heavy, and even though the stitching was smooth, the machine is heavy and it felt like I was operating a large piece of farm equipment. That's the impression it gave me. The point is, Viking is great, so is Pfaff...for that matter so is BabyLock, but who can afford one... Anyway, I love my Sapphire 960Q