Gramfel, can you refer me to the poor reviews you've seen - or to any? I have searched for reviews of the Bernette 46 (both google and yahoo) and haven't found them... Maybe I'm missing something?
The Bernette 56 or 65, that came out in the mid 2000's (wow, that's wierd) definitely had tension issues. I'm not considering those, just this model that came out late last year.