I actually quite liked the Vortex style machines, I had the red Widetrack one, think it was the Hurricane which had the later style cyclonic system and it was a fantastic vacuum. Cleaned brilliantly and never clogged. I used to take it to work and use it in the office I worked in at the time because it used to get filthy. It coped fine with that.
But yes, the Icon was the best of the bagless cleaners from around that time. I love my bagged one, its incredible.