I thought of this thread yesterday when a heap of catalogues arrived containing vacuum cleaners. They are all so ugly! Like Pixie said... like robots or something. Ugh. I know my Vax isn't a piece of art but it's purely functional... not so appearance driven. Definitely going to look into ducted vacuuming if this is the future of vacuum cleaners. Can't they do a retro one? I live in an older style home... a robot would look so out of place. Oh but the Mieles weren't too bad... I wish KitchenAid made vacuums!!! LOL