Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Here's the deal: I teach sewing for kids and adults at a studio I run in my town. For SIX years I was able to teach on the Brother XL- 2600i (Sew Advance Sew Affordable). They held up beautifully to hours of daily use. After two finally bit the dust, I went looking to replace them only to find that Brother was no longer making them. I researched a ton and decided to purchase 3 of these and give them a go before replacing them all. Since it's inconvenient to have students using different style machines, I decided to test just one myself with a project. After 2 days it got stuck in reverse. Hmmm. weird. I opened another one and tried to complete my project. It came to a point where I needed to use a zig zag. SKIPPED STITCHES. I'm a seamstress so I'm well aware of things that can cause skipped stitches. I was absolutely using the correct needle for my materials and it was brand new so theres no chance it was dull or bent. So I opened up the next box. That one ALSO skipped stitches. On that machine literally every time the needle jumped to the right it would skip that stitch. To prove to myself that it had nothing to do with the fabric or the needle, I manually turned the wheel and watched whether or not the needle would "pick up" the bobbin on the right side. NOPE. Not once. Super. Not having time to deal with the problem that day, I set the machines aside and went to work. While at the studio I got a call from a woman who was having issues with her sewing machine and wondered if I could take a peek and see if she was doing something wrong. Guys, guess what machine she bought and what it was doing. Guesssss. SPOILER: It was this one and it was skipping stitches and "sometimes getting stuck in reverse." Brother where is the XL - 2600i? I bought those on amazon for $65 each back in 2011 and they made it this far. How is this machine double that and garbage right out of the box? Not excited to dig up my warranty to try to find out if I wiped my butt with $342.