I've owned a Janome 15000 for 6 or 7 years and recently purchased a Janome S9 to take to classes. Both are great combination machines and have low maintenance, great machines, and I love them. The 15000 has larger hoops and one hoop is made to hoop a quilt for quilting (a main reason I purchased it).
For digitizing software, I have owned Janome MBX 4.5 for 5 years and even though it had a steep learning curve, I used it to create the designs I used to quilt my quilts as well as labels for them. This month I purchased the Janome Artistic Digitizer and I'm blown away with it's capabilities. I can bring in a picture, clip art, or drawing and it will digitize it for me. It will work with other brand machines, but is fully integrated with the Janome machines.