Vacuum Cleaners - Follow-up

I now know more about vacuums than I thought I would ever know. The area I am vacuuming is my den that is carpeted with indoor/outdoor carpet. We spend most of time down there so a lot of dog traffic in that area. I went on several blogs, read a dozens of reviews (including Amazon), and a multitude of forums. I even posted the questions on a couple of sites including moms site and pets site. After weeding through all of that, I came up with 3 models:

Bissell Pet Eraser - All of reviews had this as good as the best pet vacuums. The price ranged from $135-$170.
Dyson Animal - This one had a lot of mixed reviews. It seemed professional reviewers loved it. But the consumers didn't like it or thought it wasn't worth the money The price ranged from $450-$550.
iRobot Roomba - A lot of reviewers talked about it on their hardwood floors, not on carpet. And many reviewers talked about parts breaking down. Most of them raved about the scheduling function. The price ranged from $330 - $550.

I loved the concept of Roomba. A vacuum that you could schedule and it would clean for you. I wouldn't have to nag my husband about it and the floors would be pet hair clean. However, I was definitely scared away about the breaking down function and, for that price, I didn't want to consistently repairing a product. I have always been attracted to the Dyson...but not the price. I thought the reviews were mixed enough that I didn't want to put out that money on mixed reviews. Thus, I went with the Bissell. I guess you can say I am risk averse around money.

I bought the Bissell from Kohl's (they had a sale). I bought it on Sunday and put it together and ran it on Monday. The results were great. The canister was full and I really felt, by doing the look test for hair, that the vacuum got most of it up. I don't get around to vacuuming until Friday. On Friday, I start vacuuming and after about 5 minutes I start smelling a burning smell. And it keeps getting stronger. So I unplugged in defeat and put it away. I was going out of town and asked my husband to take the vacuum back - at this point, I think it is defunct - and get a new one. I liked the first results and wanted those back.

Did I mention I should have gotten the Roomba before? My husband did not take the vacuum back. Instead he ran the vacuum again and told me that the smell was faint but not bad. Not what I asked him to do. I just got back into town so I haven't had a chance to test the vacuum. So stay tuned...