Royal was history about 7-8 years ago. I was at a local Target just recently and have seen the newest Dirt Devil uprights, not impressed. Plastic rollers, cheap quality, no HEPA filtration, etc. Again, the ONLY Dirt Devil I'd ever get today would be a bagged central vac because it's night and day in comparison. I could write several paragraphs explaining why but to sum it up, you basically get what what you're paying for. They're the closest thing to what a Royal was like in terms of quality, reliability, and performance back in the day. The newest Dirt Devils can work for what they are but the Dirt Devil brand wasn't really focused on making premium vacuum cleaners in the first place, they were created as offering the budget Royal and it worked. In fact, Dirt Devil ended up being more popular than Royal. So just because they were more popular doesn't mean that they were better vacuums overall, Royal was always the top. That's why I liked Royal more than Dirt Devil and would've glady paid extra for a Royal at a vacuum store than buying a Dirt Devil at a department store. Otherwise if I really wanted a decent enough Dirt Devil today that wasn't a central vac, that ship unfortunately had sailed a long time ago and won't ever return back to shore. I think the more decent Dirt Devils you could've gotten back in the day were the ones that was made by Royal before TTI bought them out. Otherwise if those were still being made today, they would've costed double if not triple the price. TTI has to keep them at a certain price point and that's why I don't ever see them improve.
