I bought my Bernina 440QE soon after I started quilting. I hope it runs forever so I never need to buy a new machine. However I wish I had known more about what I wanted and needed when I bought it. I spent about $1000 extra to get the embroidery module, thinking that I would want to use it someday. That day has never come, so the embroidery module has not been used, except for a few hours of learning how to use it. Other than that, I am very happy with the features of the machine, now that I have a longarm for quilting.
My Bernina lives upstairs in my quilting room. Sometimes I want to quilt downstairs, so I set up a different machine, usually a vintage Singer 301, a featherweight, or an older but not quite vintage Singer that I probably bought in the 80's. Those machines don't have the knee lift, which I love on the Bernina, they don't sit in a recessed table like the Bernina, or have the other bells and whistles of the Bernina. But I still enjoy sewing on them and find that I can accomplish just as much.