I would be curious to know if anyone here has had a good experience with Dyson. The marketing woo, high price, and the flimsy, plasticky look of their vacuums has always turned me off.
I asked about Dyson since I'd also been at least somewhat impressed by their marketing materials. The response was that while their performance is reasonable in a light use context, they are not at all durable and their use is unheard of in a commercial environment. They also have no commercial products, which is a red flag because while a company's marketing might be able to bamboozle consumers, the professionals are far less impressed with glossy brochures and only concerned with consistent performance, reliability and TCO. Nilfisk and Miele have commercial products.
That was pretty much "case closed" for my decision making process and I bought a Nilfisk. YMMV.
You can see the ranking here (unfortunately in German):
http://www.stern.de/wissen/technik/stiftung-warentest-ueber-...
The tested Dyson made last place (from 12 contestants) with mostly average results. It's the most expensive and least effective machine they tested. The biggest disadvantage is the sound level: it was so noisy that it was downgraded.
Hoover's Vice President for Europe, Mike Rutter, said on UK national TV: "I do regret that Hoover as a company did not take the product technology off Dyson; it would have lain on the shelf and not been used".
Honestly, if your canister vacuum is losing suction when it starts to fill out, save yourself $400 and empty it out..you'll need to do that anyways.