I would choose the Hoover Platinum Lightweight bagged upright. It's a throwback to the simpler designs of yesteryear with its fan-first configuration and very large soft dust bag. Add to that a very long cord, light weight and power switch on the contoured handle, and you have my perfect, simple, effective upright vacuum cleaner. I use a separate simple canister for non-carpet cleaning, so I don't need a bulky upright with onboard tools.
I know! But the cost of excellent European canisters here is much higher than in Europe. Probably a result of history: the upright was born in the USA, and the cylinder/canister was born in Europe....
Marcus, If you will be in St. Louis, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to St, James Missouri where the Riccar factory and the Vacuum Cleaner Museum are located.
Tom Gasko (dysonman1) runs the museum and I bet he would love to give you a tour of the museum and the Riccar / Simplicity factory. If it were me, and I found myself in St. Louis, I would jump on the chance to meet Tom and get a tour.
To mention my favorite upright vacuum and that would be the Kirby Sentria for cleaning performance and my second choice would be the Tandem Air Riccar Radience which cleans just as well as Kirby, but may not last 50 years like a Kirby would.
The most amazing upright I've seen is the Airway "super chief" upright. I saw one from Tom Gasko's collection at the Tacony vacuum museum. It was way ahead of its time. Perhaps someday it will make a comeback.
Trouble is, we can't get Riccar in the UK and there are very few other brands from the U.S that we, as buyers can buy that is COST EFFECTIVE. Some models are far too big for my home (cue Kirby) as well as far too expensive to buy and maintain.
Sebo's long standing reputation and spares availability means its a low cost brand and reiterates its reliability, not just from a motor or general performance point of view. So very few forget that reliability isn't just from a performance point of view.
The big shocker for me at the moment is dealing with Hoover UK. After purchasing their Hoover "Idol" stick vacuum, and despite moans about the poor floor heads supplied, they have sent me two other alternative floor heads that they claim should have come with the model concerned. One of the floor heads had to come from Italy - it begs the question that in this day and age, and with Hoover's well known name in the UK - as to why I have to wait an extended period for tools AND dust bags when they should be in place already.