have owned this saw for close to 4 years and it has been excellent.  Very quiet, minimal vibration, reliable, and more than enough power.  If I earned my living cutting scroll saw items might have considered the $1,000 plus saws but I don't so they were never seriously in the running.  I believe in the law of diminishing returns and once you get to a certain level of quality and performance additional improvement gets very costly quickly.  That is the way I viewed the expensive saws; perhaps slightly better but not worth the cost.  As for comments about the blade hole being off center mine was dead on when I received it.  Out of curiosity I looked to see where my saw was made but it wasn't marked.  I don't have any problem with Asian manufactured products but there are some low quality manufacturers out there and frankly also here in US.  I would hope Dewalt is not lowering the quality of this otherwise excellent saw by going to the cheapest manufacturer they can find and then skipping quality control inspections.