My two cents...I tried fmq on my DSM and while I had some success, I was still frustrated with the results. I bought a HQ Sweet Sixteen with the orientation being perpendicular to me. It was a liberating experience! I no longer ran into the right side of the throat space on my DSM machine, which even tho it is about 9 inches, if you are doing a bigger project, you have to try and move the quilt within that space. So the quilting machines oriented like your DSM, while they give you more width, more than the 9" on my DSM for example, a lot of them are still very similar in height space in the harp. This also affects your field of view. I admit, I cannot quote measurements of those machines, but I can tell you that my DSM harp height is 5". So even if I now have 15" width on a quilting machine, you might find that the height is still a limitation, in terms of how much quilt you can cram in to the harp space and then how much freedom you have to move your quilt around to fmq. I believe the harp height on my S16 is about 9-10" (it's away for service at the moment, so I can't measure it), and the harp width is 16". So by comparison, I have a lot more room to move the bulk of a queen or king sized quilt around. Furball makes a good point. Bottom line, it is what works for you. I've never tried one oriented like my DSM because my brain had a hard enough time adjusting to fmq where I can move the fabric any which way I want , whenever I want after nearly forty years of only going forward a reverse. I just found with the perpendicular orientation, it was easier as I think it broke down that resistance to move in any direction, because there was no physical barrier to the left or right.
Other considerations when comparing the various machines would be bobbin capacity, stitch rate, price vs budget, service, stitch regulation options, and so on. Sorry, it's not as straightforward as orientation of the machine, IMHO.
BTW, my hat is off to the many quilters that turn out those beautiful, intricately machine quilted masterpieces on their DSM's. While I can do a decent job of a placemat on my DSM, anything much bigger is beyond my capabilities and patience on a DSM!!
Last edited by Kwiltr; 05-11-2016 at 07:22 PM.