I tried out George at several different quilt shows and like it a lot. It felt very smooth and visibility was great. It needs more oiling than the Sweet Sixteen (you only oil the hook on the Sweet16). I think george had two wicks that you needed to oil plus the hook, but I may be misremembering. If there had been one in my price range I’d have grabbed it up. I spent several years trying out all the sit down mid arms and long arms at the quilt shows and sewing expos near me and I found that I liked the George, Sweet Sixteen, Juki and the Innova equally. You may decide you prefer one over the other, but all of those are well made, handled anything I threw at them in terms of threads, double and triple layers of batting, etc.
I looked for a couple of years at the used forums, eBay and Craig’s list for any one of those 4 machines before something came up in my price range- it ended up being a 4 year old Sweet Sixteen with only 600,000 stitches on it and came with the Bobbin Winder and every available upgrade and all the feet I wanted, but no stitch regulation (which I did NOT want). I’m very happy with it and am sure that if an affordable used George, Juki or Innova had shown up I’d have been just as happy with them.
I’m glad that I took a few years trying out all the machines because It really helped me feel confident in buying the used machine.
Rob