I can't answer the testing questions but yes, speed and speed measurement is important to me. Machines that have .5 amp motors or less like the Featherweight and 319 are just so slooooow to use since I'm a speed demon. I would imagine the SPM for both these machines is pretty low on the spectrum. Similarly, my newest Bernina is supposed to be 1100 SPM and I out run the machine when doing FMQing, which can be irritating. So, speed/SPM
will be an important factor when I shop for a long arm quilting machine in the future.