Yet what amazes me, is that Kirby try to sell you on the notion that the Kirby is a lifetime machine and you will never have to buy a new one again - and a year later when your new Kirby is due for a service, they ring you up and try to sell you another new Kirby!
Kirbys are great cleaners for carpets, but they are damn inconvenient when you need to keep going from carpet to hose for cleaning the furniture - the fact that they have so many attachments does not get away from the fact that you still have to turn it off, get down on your hands and knees, lift the hood, turn the belt lifter, disengage the head lock, remove the head, then attach the hose - and vice versa afterwards.
I have both the Miele S7 and 2 Kirbys, one pre-G and a G7. I can honestly say that of all of them I prefer using the Heritage 1. Its cleaning ability on carpet is excellent, and I can feel the carpet vibrate when the Kirby passes over it, not to mention the deep hum of the carpet being beaten clean.
I use the type 2 yellow bags with my H1 and as long as the outer bag gets washed every year or so, the filtration is adequate for me.
The Miele S7 costs a fortune to buy Hepa filters every year for, and bags are also expensive - its overkill on filtration if you don't suffer from allergies.
Kirbys pre-1991 are so simple and reliable, and also very robust - I think that the Generation models are OK, and nice to look at, but I just don't like the tech drive, or the horrible whine it makes when going back and forth - and not to mention if there is any resistance like the head being to low it causes the tech drive to slow the main motor down or even to cause the cogs to slip with a horrid clunking noise. Tech drive made a moderately heavy machine much heavier, and when I sold Kirbys, I was told never to let a woman pick the Kirby up or that would be a sale gone.
Kirbys are a love or hate machine, and take some getting used to - some might say that they are too old fashioned and much of a hassle to use the hose, but I think that they are a good, sturdy, well made and durable carpet sweeper.
Kirby salesmen don't help the Kirby's image though and the pressure we had to exert on people to get a sale - even calling the boss to get him to pressure the potential buyer on the phone was just totally unjustified.
Kirby need to change their sales model now as door to door sales are very unpopular in this day and age and most people would rather buy a Kirby on Ebay than have a pressure demo from a Kirby salesman and pay way more than the Kirby was worth in commission to the salesman.