When I went out to buy my first embroidery machine, I looked at the Bernina -because of the stitch regulator feature. It was a beautiful machine but way beyond my price range. My best friend had a Brother Innovis 2500, so that's the one I looked at and fell in love with. ( She now has a quattro 6000D - that has so many bells& whistles & videos that it talks to you....weird)
My machine came with a lot of good tools and I received two huge selections of threads and bobbins. Eight years and literally 28 million stitches later, it is still going strong. I get it professionally cleaned and serviced every 5 million stitches. It's a work horse.