The HENRY Company

I know this first hand, as I was a Eureka Rep in the 1980's. Back then we still went to each big box store in our territory to take their machine orders. I never once heard any of the buyers ask, "What is Good?" it was always "What is New?", and what was new, generally wasn't too good.
Companies spend millions on research & development to build a new product. As such, they must aggressively market it as their newest, best model to recoup their money, EVEN IF IT'S JUNK! This phenomenon seems to be happening with most vacuum companies as they increasingly ask marketing guys to design the stuff, seemingly with little input from anyone who knows how vacuums work or what typical use a vacuum must endure. What's worse, some manufacturers throw all their eggs into 1 basket, phasing out the "good old" stuff that made them the millions of dollars in the1st place. Then they get all surprised ( sometimes even belligerent) when we say we won't sell it! And finally, the big box stores' role in all of this. Since they only want the newest model of everything they, by definition, end up with only the newest, crappiest stuff, foregoing the "old" (better) stuff due to space limitations.