Having had a cheaper alternative and struggled with it feeling that I couldn't justify the cost when I did finally buy one I can tell you that it is worth every penny/cent.
My old one was an Omniblend and I tried hard to tell myself that it did what I needed but it took time and effort to get to where I wanted things. Remember I'm allergic to dairy so make my own alternatives, cheese sauces, cashew cream, cheese made from almonds or cashews and so on. The old one finally broke about 4 or so years ago and couldn't be repaired. We'd brought it out from the UK to Australia which didn't help matters but it hag a short warranty and the motor went.
We did a lot of research, talked about cheaper vitamix models in the shop and so on.
Having it, it spends it's life on the counter in use 2 or 3 times a day some days, but more often only 2 or 3 times a week. They are not for just pureeing soups. That's a waste. They do considerably more than that.
Mine is mostly used for pureeing cashews with a minimal amount of water, or almonds and creating a completely smooth puree in the process. For a really hard cheese with no extra water after soaking though I have to move over to the other gadget on our counter, a Magimix Patissier (heavy duty food processor and mixer in one) which can create a much harder totally smooth cashew cheese, though I've only just established this and it does take it's time. Usually the Vitamix is the best option.
There are only 2 or 3 other members of this site that I can see actually needing and using one. None if them have yet replied to this thread.
We have the smaller containers for the Vitamix as well though they are less frequently used but they are useful. Can a stick blender do what I do with mine? absolutely not. Can a normal blender/liquidiser do what I do in this? No.
But you have to need to go beyond the realms of a standard blender for it to be justified.
So the big questions, am I glad I bought it? Yes. It's it expensive? Very definitely. Is it worth it? Yes it is worth every penny/cent and if I had to replace it (it has a10 year warranty) would I buy the same again? Yes without hesitation. But I use it's functions and need to be able to make a totally smooth paste from nuts, either in the form of a hard cheese, a softer cheese or a nut based cheese sauce. If you don't need that and don't make your own nut butters, you really don't need the power it has. And as I said, I reckon there are 2, maybe 3 other members on this site (who are currently active) who would actually need it and use it. Everyone else probably doesn't need it.
These were all made using either the Vitamix or the Magimix. Nothing else has a powerful enough motor to do this.
Oh, and we don't actually use it much to make a soup hot. All the components of the soup still need cooking separately. It is simply a reheat and puree feature rather than an actual cook my soup from scratch feature. So given that we don't actually like a seriously smooth soup full of air, we don't use it to reheat the soup. The stove is just as good for that. But we do use the auto clean feature.
