It sounds like you made a good decision - a cylinder/canister vac with a powerhead is always a good option for homes with multiple floortypes.
Personally, and I'm not sure how things are in the US at the moment, but the vacuum market is very stale currently. Once upon a time, you could spend any amount of money on a vacuum and it would clean relatively well, but now there's so much rubbish on the market that it's becoming increasingly more difficult to find a decent cleaner.
And the criteria isn't the same as it used to be either, with various brands now having different ranges sold under the same name but completely different cleaners - some good and some are terrible. It's not as black and white anymore as "X brand is good, Y brand isn't"
