Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

Hi there. I stumbled on this forum and wonder if you can help me in my search. I have spent thousands on vacuums over the years. Our house burned down this summer so I'm tasked with replacing everything including, of course, our vacs. But the reason I've bought so many is that I've never been happy with any. Ignoring all the older/generic/cheap ones, these are what we owned pre-fire: - Dyson Ball Animal (don't recall exact model number. It was purple). I was sick of vacuums not working and this seemed like a luxury that we were ready for. But - pun not really intended - it kind of sucked. Stupid thing was useless for picking up cat litter. The cord was horribly in the way all the time (having to remove the cord to access the hose was dumb). I liked the maneuverability of it. - Roomba (one of the originals). Hated this thing. It would wander around aimlessly, sort of picking up really light things, and I replaced the expensive batteries every few months. - Neato XV-11. HUGE improvement over the Roomba. Still, I had to replace the batteries too often. But performance-wise it worked. - Electrolux Ergorapido (NiCad). Not expensive, and it was handy. But the battery died quickly. Thankfully, bought it at Costco - Electrolux Ergorapido (LiIon). When I returned the above, I noticed they were now carrying the Lithium version. Bought it. This was a fine stick vac for spot use on bare floors. In the last couple of months I bought the following: - Dyson V10 stick vac. This $900 (Canadian) unit is by far the most expensive and I expected better. Again, it CANT PICK UP A SINGLE PIECE OF CAT LITTER! What the hell, Dyson? Otherwise, we like the concept, so we tried... - Shark Ion duoClean. Getting better! This thing's performance is good and overall the design is much better than the Dyson. But (and it is a big but)... the battery lasts maybe 15 minutes and it takes FOREVER to charge. It won't even START charging for over 3 hours after taking it out of the vac. If I put it in the fridge it can start charging in 20 minutes but still takes 4 hours to get me another 20 minutes. - Whole home built-in vac (installed in the rental home they have us in). I've never had a built-in before, and I must not get it... but I hate it. Hauling around a huge hose that just gets in the way. No Thanks. What to try next? I think I'm done with Dyson - which I personally believe is all name and nothing else. Have the robots come a long way? Both of mine were 4 (Neato) and 6 (Roomba) years old. They did OK at general daily maintenance, but couldn't depend on them for full clean. Would love some advice/opinions on what to try next.