Our sewing room looks like a Janome showroom, so I am slightly prejudice. I have a 20 year old mechanical Janome that sews like it came from the showroom yesterday--have you taken it in for service? They do need yearly service to keep going strong.
In addition to my school mate (the 20 year old number), I have a Janome 634D serger, and a Janome 9700 sewing/embroidery machine. Since I already had a good sewing machine, i bought the "combined" unit, but if I hadn't had a good basic sewing machine, I would have bought the Janome 300E for embroidery and one of the better Janome sewing models like the memory craft
6600.My wife and I make most of our clothes, all our home dec items (including slip covers and drapes), and tons of embroidered gifts--this year we made christmas tea towels--135 of them, last year it was embroidered throw pillows. Also other birthday, baby, and whatever else you can think of things.
I am convinced that Janome makes the best product around, I wouldn't have anything else--I made a terrible mistake and bought a Brother machine before buying the 9700---NEVER AGAIN will one of those pieces of (*& pass my door.
Jon