I do very little machine embroidery so I bought a Brother PE770 off of Amazon. I know, I know...but my local Brother dealer doesn't sell this machine, they only carry high end ones and I didn't need anything anywhere near that fancy.
I've only used it a few times so far but so far it has worked brilliantly right out of the box. It has a larger hoop than most inexpensive machines (which I haven't even used yet, lol) and so far (knock on wood) I haven't had a single problem with the machine. I haven't tried embroidering on tough materials yet (like a baseball cap) so I can't say how it'll do there, but for plain cotton it's great. Nice even stitches, good tension...I did have some thread fraying/shredding issues but I was using really cheap thread...switched to a better brand and that fixed the issue.