Hi Richard
I brought mine in March 2012 and touch wood not had any vac's go or any other major issues. Only minor problem was a loose wire on the remote control unit couple of weeks ago, easily fixed. Prior to this i had a Airflex Pro 130psi which was a great entry level machine but i soon wanted more power and upgraded to a second hand Scorpion which was certainly more powerful, i sold this when i temporarily left carpet cleaning for 6 months to do something else before releasing i had made a mistake and i had to start from scratch again. I had liked the design and look of the Pro but it had lacked the grunt this time i wanted to get a top of the range machine and for me a Storm ticked all the boxes. Has seen me through 18 months trouble free cleaning and just had a service.
Obviously since i got my machine there have been a few new machines on the market, not sure how these compare to the Storm, i'm not too fussed on which machine has the highest cfm etc, they all have roughly the same power give or take, for me it was i had liked the first machine i purchased and the service Matt gave me and i liked the look of the machine and others on here gave it good reviews.