Yes to no.4. I have a LA and my advise to ANYONE is find some one who has a LA and is willing to let you use it. I got mine and was so happy I couldn't wait to start useing it. Well the long and short of it is I HATE picking out and when someone tells you that you can sew in more thread in 5 min. than you can pick out in 5hrs. believe me thats true. So now my long arm set in my spare bedroom and I take my Quilts to a really good professional and I don't have to rip out threads. If I had been really smart I would of saved myself alot of money and flustration. Well we are all on our own learning curves. Good luck in what ever you decide.

Some people just don't like to quilt. They like piecing. I have a friend that loves hand-quilting, sewing, crochet, knitting, card making and probably 100 other crafty things but she hates piecing quilts. She loves quilts but she freaks out if there are more than 4-6 pieces in a block and will never have the patience to assemble anything larger than a throw size quilt--again, too many pieces in a quilt. She has no problem buying 20 skeins yarn and crocheting a king size afghan, though or hand making 50 very elaborate & elegant looking Christmas cards.

I like the entire process but totally agree that a person should go try out systems before plunking down hard earned money on one. Not just quilting a sandwich that someone else loaded for you. The whole enchilada of squaring the backing, loading it, loading & smoothing the batting and then getting the top on squarely. Then threading the monster and getting your tensions tweaked. If you survive all this, especially if you're trying to use some funky thread or lumpy batting, and still come back to learn more--then a mid-arm or long-arm system may be right up your alley. I think a lot of people go play with one at their local quilt shop or dealer and think how easy it is but they don't realize all the work that loading a quilt and trouble-shooting thread/batting/piecing problems entails. Their biggest worry is if they have room to set it up.

My story was complete & total sticker shock at the cost of custom quilting which was the only type of quilting I was interested in at the time--$400 for a king size! It wouldn't take very many quilts on a home-style machine quilting frame for me to feel I was ahead of the game; especially since I all ready owned a 9" machine, I figured I only needed to recoup the cost of the frame. Then I added a PC Quilter and Max Throat. Then I got a super bargain on a Voyager 17SLR on a Pro-Flex frame.

Look for it on sale, I usually pay about $20; even with shipping it comes out cheaper than retail.

I really appreciate hearing all the pros and cons of a LA. I can see that I will have to find a show that offers many different brands to test drive. And BKrenning is correct, the quilt shops have everything loaded and ready to go, which makes that process not an issue.
All this info is great food for thoughts.
Thanks.