I would suggest that you at least look at a Brother 1500. I had my heart set on a Juki after meeting & then watching a lot of Sharon Schamber's tutes. I have a good friend that quilts tons of quilts & owns a Juki & a Brother and so I went over to her house for a demo of each and to try them. To me, the footprint looks the same. Some folks say they are made by the same company, I'm not sure about that. However, after trying them both I ended up buying the Brother from Ken's and have been very happy with it. It is a lot cheaper. The downside is if you need service, it wouldn't be local for me. I haven't had any big problems with mine so am a happy camper with the cheaper brother. BTW my very experienced quilting friend prefers the Brother and has used it for quite a long time.
I can say that we both use ours as our domestic machine for FMQ but not on a frame.
HTH
Min