You are definitely not wrong or excessively fussy! I took a "Introduction to Long Arming" class this winter from a shop that offers rental time on long arm machines and we were all taught how to anchor the stitching at the start and end of our stitching. I think every long arming demo video I've seen on youtube does this. It sounds like this person you hired got herself a long machine but not look into *how* to properly use it to produce quality, long lasting products. (Kinda like getting a car without having a drivers ed course! Not a perfect analogy, but you get idea.) I would not expect to even *need* to check whether someone offering long arm quilting would anchor their stitching, but now I guess that a bunch of folks will now asking about this when looking into hiring someone new. Big sigh. You have my sympathies.