Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

Okay, so it has been a few years since I have been on this site... I've since moved back to my hometown in North Dakota and am living in a basement apartment with two long haired cats. That means I have dust and hair issues. The apartment is furnished with Armstrong vinyl tiles and carpet half ways up the walls. I'll jump into my main questions:

I have in my possession my trusty Simplicity 6 series, a Dyson DC07 and Cirrus vc248 (bought for cleaning computers and cars). If I had more carpet than a few rugs, my uprights would be fine... but I was given the Dyson, and I use it as a canister (the stupid over engineered design requires you to take the handle completely off and reverse it to use the hose so I cheat and use my simplicity stair kit attached to the handle in the storage position). I would continue doing this but I have gotten a few rugs and plan to have a few more and can't just clean my apartment without having to take a bunch of attachments out, use them, put them back or up to clean the rugs, just to take the attachments back down and out to use them again.... I am up to my eyeballs in hoses and attachments. I'd use the cirrus but the hose and cord are too short and there is no power nozzle. My bathroom is the only room that is carpeted and that is where my litter box is... The exhaust on the simplicity blows litter forward and scatters it everywhere (as well as the cat hair on the floor in the rest of the apartment) and the dyson's nozzle head is a pain in the butt and doesn't adjust as well as it should, and I can't go over the rugs I have in my bathroom with it as easy as I can the simplicity.

I have got it stuck in my head that I want a canister vacuum with a power nozzle. I started out wanting the dc23 motorhead exclusive but I can't find any of the motorhead series anymore. If I weren't skeptical of the turbine I would have purchased the dc23 animal already. My thoughts on the dyson were that I already have a dyson and it is an amazing machine for cat hair and there are no bags to change so I can dump as often as I need. I was also looking at the LG kompressor canisters but I cant seem to find them locally. I liked that they were allergy and asthma certified, but that doesn't seem to mean much more than "We paid to be listed in this program!"... I went to my Riccar dealer to price out the floor tools and small turbine heads for the dc23 turbine head since I could get that one at a discount and not the animal.. I got to talking to the lady (she is the dyson tech) and got her to tell me the ins and outs of stuff and why I should or shouldn't get a bagless canister. After about an hour and a half of playing with stuff and looking at Riccars (I found out the motor in the dc25 is the same as the 23, and they are at about 90 on the meter that measures the water and whatever else vacuum pressure) I took home a Charisma mid-size canister for the night... I love the longer hose and cord (can vacuum the entire place without moving outlets), love the new wand and I like some of the attachments though I am not pleased with the on-board attachments and am undecided about the power nozzle (the led lights on the front are useless). I did really enjoy the fact that I could get by with just using the power nozzle and jump from floor to rug and back without having to mess with anything. But the more I used it to dust and vacuum, the more I realized that if I am going to pay this kind of money for a vacuum, why not go the next step up and get the model that has the suction control etc in the handle... I jumped online and started looking and saw that some of the Kenmore canisters (which I was originally looking at because my mom had one years ago and I loved it because it had a mini power nozzle and speed adjustment, but chose to start looking at bagless) had the speed adjustment in the wand handle and were almost half the price of the riccar... So now we are at what brought me here...

What kind of canister should I look at that will work well with a large amount of cat hair (if they lay on anything during the day, I can come home and pull it off in sheets after vacuuming the night before), work well with hard floors, berber and mid-plush rugs, have controls in the wand handle (power, speed and nozzle power), have at least a 7 foot hose and 25 foot cord and be able to tuck into it self nicely to be stored? Are kenmore canisters still made by panisonic and are they worth a crap? Does Riccar make a mid-range model with controls on the wand? Is there a bagless that would be recommended? Should I really worry about a premium power nozzle that has a stainless steel base plate, metal roller brush etc? Should I even be looking at mid-range/size machines for a one bedroom bachelors apartment? Are there any turbo tools out there that I can ask for that don't get clogged by hair? Also, any suggestions on living with long-haired cats?

Sorry about the lengthy post but hopefully someone will chime in!

Sorry about the edits as well, didn't realize it would all get mashed together...