My favorite for piecing is my Bernina 170, just love the stitch quality etc. It is on the verge of needing a new motherboard though....the stitch length wouldn't work so I put it aside and started using my Pfaff 7570. When my Pfaff started needing a tune up again (it seems to need tuning a lot, so this one isn't my favorite machine), I went back to my Bernina and found that it was working again...this was after about 8 months. Yeah!! just love that machine! For FMQ, my favorite is my mechanical Bernina 931. This just always works with no eyelashes or hassles.