1.- You have to buy the upgrades separately.
 
2.- Partial automation, some handcrafting is necessary.
 
3.- You can make up pasta dough then spaghetti, lasagna, fettuccini, or even ravioli with the dough. Change  attachments and make your juice. 
 
4.- Updates are not available but life expectancy is quite long. Upgrade attachments are optional and only increase the uses of the machine. In my case I've bought the following upgrade attachments, Pasta roller and slicers, Ravioli maker, and Citrus Juicer. Food processor, pasta press, meat grinder/ sausage maker, and ice cream maker are available but I don't want them. Of course I still have the basic mixer for making cakes, pies, mixing eggs, breads, pizza dough, cookie batter, frostings, etc....
 
5.- KitchenAid is the industry standard in home cooking. I purchased the professional model to give me years of trouble free use. It comes with a stainless steel bowl which will last for years without breaking and is easy to clean. 
 
6.- When you have one of these puppies on your kitchen counter, you'll have bragging rights and your neighbors will be jealous. 
 
7.- Women will love you for having one. 
 
8. You can give fresh homemade pasta away as gifts to your friends. 

I just found a great deal on the slicer/shedder attachment.....homemade coleslaw !!!! shredded potatoes for potato pancakes, hash browns, shredded cheeses, slice zucchini, diced onions,....oh ya......

mudgel
My 4 slice toaster went on the fritz and now only does 2 slices. 

That happened to our last toaster and our current one too... So damn annoying that!

And to cap it off, a few weeks earlier my matching electric jug (kettle) started to leak intermittently around the level viewing area. Well I got about 8 years out of them with 1.5 years in storage between moves so that’s pretty good.

Shopping list:

Toaster
DAW
Jug (kettle)

Wayne, Its a great mixer.
I bought the same one for my wife 2 years ago and she loves it.
I think I paid 250 for mine so 199 is a great deal. In my opinion.. Its industrial grade.

Yep, it's a great investment in my kitchen. I can make food that will save me from high prices at a restaurant. I can re-sell it if I need to. Even if times get really bad, I can use it to make great food and eat well. 

We have one just like that! My wife bakes cookies at Christmas (a 36 year family tradition that people literally spread coast to coast wait all year for) and this thing makes that gargantuan effort so much easier!

You choose wisely.

Even a kitchen mixer is not immune from the issue of essential technology being abandoned by the company. After some years of use, my stand mixer by the same company stopped working. Diagnostic work identified a faulty electronic control board. However, the company no longer had the boards that fit my mixer and had stopped supporting/repairing that model. No replacement boards were available from after-market sources. The dead mixer finally went to metal recycling, and I moved on to other ways of mixing. DAW your own conclusions.

If I only had space for such a thing.