AWESOME,AWESOME,AWESOMe, had mine for over a year and a half and its sews through 10 layers of thick material for sure, no hump jumper needed all you need is this awesome thing called a muvit foot. I have used the pen more than the laser, i have found it useful for positioning where you want your needle, where you want your laser, where you want your embrodery, where you want stitching to stop. I love it. I haven't done multihoop designs yet but I know the alignment marks are capable in the machine with the border hoop function. I have sewn with gutterman, superior, YLI, aurifil, madeira, threadart, signature, sulky, really it takes any thread, not at all picky. Mine has been problem free for a year and a half. Really you won't be disappointed. It is as amazing as it looks for sewing and embroidery. the heft of the machine is all I don't like. It is a tremendous pain to transport so if you think you will be using it as a class machine or taking it somewhere very often think not. It weighs a ton and when I say a ton I mean a ton. I dread just taking it in for cleaning just at the thought of having to move the beast, made my espire look like a featherweight. Other than that it is solid. Me personally I still don't get the gripes about the screws I can count on one hand how many times I may unscrew in a year, the bobbin plate pops off so unless something is caught in the feed dogs there is no need to remove plates very often