Back in my professional housecleaning days, Dyson vacuums also seemed a lot more prone to breaking than a lot of other vacuums, mostly in a lot of simple ways as far as buttons sticking, beater bars no longer working; my favorite vacuums to work with were Sharks, though there are a lot of other very nice affordable, bagless, powerful, durable vacuums from other companies too.
I worked for a while as a vacuum repair tech years ago. It was kinda neat.
Dysons had a few specific problems. One, their cord was undersized for the power it was carrying, and would get warm to the touch, much more so than other brands. I never saw any repairs related to that, but it was indicative of a cheaply-built philosophy that had lots of other problems. Two, their rolling brushes had a simple plastic-on-plastic bearing surface (other vacuums had a plastic-on-metal or bearing-on-plastic), and as the brush accumulated hair and other things, the two plastics would melt into each-other from the friction and it would require a top shell replacement. This was a really common repair on these. Another problem, common to all bagless vacs, was a buildup of dust and grit inside the motor, causing early motor failure.
A well-cared-for Dyson is a decent vacuum, but you're generally better off getting a good Eureka for half the price and abusing the crap out of it. Those things could take a beating.
One a side note. This guy's channel is one of my youtube favorites. Some of the classic computers he tears apart and talks about are absolutely fascinating.
Another fine example: http://youtu.be/MBEkP_zKKcg (EEVblog)