I've used a short stroke dragonfly and loved it for BnG shading, really nice to work with, and a Hyper2 which is great for color blending, both are well built machines; the DFly is light and has an elegant smooth polished sculpted and minimal feel. the hyper is solid and industrial though the H3 looks more refined and adjustable and maybe a bit lighter than the H2. The hyper2 I felt had a lot of extra frame material, but you could run it over with a truck and it'd still run. The other main hang ups I had about the H2(set screw vise and no tensioner) were fixed in the H3, so I'd be inclined to try the H3. But that said it'd be real hard to count out the Halo, it is amazing and works so very, very well at everything and it's extremely solid for its minimalism. Nothing extraneous, just form and function in a perfect marriage. If I was just getting into electric rotaries I'd buy a few halos and all the different exicenters and that'd be take care of my daily drivers.