This subject is one of my pet peeves. In my experience the person who sells the machine doesn't know very much about it except how much commission they could make from it. DH was promised a free lesson for me when he surprised me with my new machine a few years back. When I called to set it up the person who sold him the machine couldn't do the lesson because she didn't know how to operate it. There was only one person between 3 counties working for this company who did and trying to pin her down to an appointment was like pulling wisdom teeth. When I finally did get an appointment after 3 months trying, which by the way was a 45 mile drive from here, the whole time she was "training" me she kept having to jump up every time a customer walked in because she was the only one there and a new commission was priority over the one who had just paid the commission to another person. Of course this is my experience with one machine manufacturer and maybe it's not that way all around but I bet it is more than not. The lucky ones are people who are acquainted with many people who own many different machines who are nice enough to explain and even show their machines to them. On my machine, which does not have the dual feed foot already installed, the walking foot can do some decorative stitches but it is limited. The slot that the needle goes into is only so wide and I have to carefully make sure that the decorative stitch can be adjusted down so that this slot can accommodate it, otherwise needle breakage and possible machine breakage could happen. So it's limited. The only decorative stitch I've done with it is the Serpentine Stitch which I really like and use a lot but I have to adjust the width so that it stays inside the slot.