Talk to your dealer. When I was interested in the BabyLock Tiara (made by HQ) I, too, had the same reservation about purchasing the stitch regulator. My LQS said every once in awhile the manufacturer offers the stitch regulator free as a part of a package. I told her to call me when they offered it FREE. She did and I just used it on my last two baby quilts. There is definitely a learning curve, but the stitching comes out lovely. I am fairly good on my own without it, but probably have a smaller stitch than the 10 st/inch I had the regulator on. That being said, if I had to buy it, I probably wouldn't, but since it was basically free, I will use it when I am more concerned about consistency. Definitely try it out at the dealers if you can. In the cruise mode, the foot pedal is used basically as the "on" switch, and the machine won't stitch until you move the quilt..............very strange to get used to and seems more jerky especially if you have a stencil to follow and you slow down on curves (the machine may speed up on the straight areas and slow down to a crawl on the curves, as you would, but without controlling it yourself with the foot pedal, it is almost a surprise). Just a footnote: the original price I was quoted without the stitch regulator, was more expensive than the package deal, with the stitch regulator thrown in, so a win-win for me.