I have the Elna 7200 QDP (half-sister to the Janome MC6500)and all this talk about the Horizon has me itching to upgrade! I love my Elna and I even have a mid-arm quilting system now but I'm still getting machine envy--LOL!
As for being afraid of your machine, I also only had mechanicals until after I started quilting (and made enough money to afford a good computerized machine--LOL). My first computerized machine was a Singer Futura CE-200. I wanted a sewing & embroidery machine and it was the first one I could afford. I got out the manual and went through every single page several times. I setup the embroidery unit and just played with the built in designs. Then I went through every single stitch and played with the widths/lengths on scraps. Then I put it in straight stitch mode and just sewed & sewed & sewed. The teeny tiny throat soon drove me crazy and the credit card was paid off so I started shopping the "new back then" 9" throat machines and finally bought the Elna. I did the same thing with it that I did with the Singer. It does all kinds of fancy stitches and I have tested them but quilting is what I bought it for and that's all I really care about. Hubby keeps annoying me about the buttonholes on both machines and I just hand him the manual--LOL!