Marcus, I would agree with the majority here. In my experience, the Filter Queen canisters may be a high quality, long lasting cleaner, but lacking in cleaning performance. Due to using a paper cone with no micro filtration layer, as others have said the dust in the dirt picked up gets attracted instantly to the filter & causes it to lose most of it's suction & airflow with hardly any dirt in the bin. No wonder HMI Industries introduced the Filter Queen Optima canister with a paper bag in the 90's, I think they know this is a problem with their cleaner.
In addition, the current wand & powerhead neck need a redesign. It's a poor design that breaks far too easily, due to the clips used to secure the wand to the hose & powerhead neck, & this in turn causes the wiring in the wand & powerhead neck to fail prematurely. Unacceptable for the pricepoint this cleaner is sold at new. As for the powerhead, the current design uses a brushroll that is ineffective at grooming carpets & poor at dirt removal, & also needs a redesign. They should have stuck with the old powerhead design & made a swivel neck for it, at least that powerhead can have it's brushroll adjusted so the bristles stick out more & groom & clean better, comparable to a Electrolux PN5/6 powerhead when adjusted properly.
If Filter Queen wants to remain competitive in selling their product, these issues must be addressed IMMEDIATELY with the next model. And they need to scrap the paper cone, replace it with a cone made of HEPA Cloth material with a support to support it inside the bin, & the Medipure filter needs to be replaced with proper pleated HEPA Filter media inside the motor compartment, replacing the batting around the vents. These measures will make the cleaner a competitive product in the marketplace & will greatly help the DTD salesman in selling their product to the consumer.
Mike - I don't know if you were aware of this, but there are aftermarket hose, wand & powerhead kits available thru vac shop distributors to upgrade the Filter Queen. This is often encouraged by a vac shop if a customer brings in a current model with powerhead & wand issues instead of repairing the product & having the same issues repeatedly. These same kits can be found on Ebay & other sites as well, & since they use a common Plastiflex hose with 32mm 1.25 inch fitting, this allows the use of generic tools without needing to use a adapter.
Rob