We haven't bought bread, rolls or dough in over 10 years now. The first half of that, I had a bread machine and used it for everything. I really liked the timer function to start the day with fresh bread or to have pizza dough ready for when I got home from work.
The last half of that I've been making my breads by hand or using my stand mixer for kneading. The combination of being a lot more confident with breads, working at home, and keeping a sourdough starter handy gradually moved me away from using the bread maker.
My husband does still use it for one of the hamburger roll recipes we make, and sometimes we'll crank out some pizza dough (takes 90 minutes.) Most of the time now, though, we make slow fermenting breads and develop the dough over a couple of days instead of making 2 - 4 hour yeasty breads.
The bread machine was a good purchase for us, though. It was a nice way to switch over to homemade breads without having to deal with anything too complex at the start. We've kind of gone full circle with bread making now and rarely even use recipes - just do it all by look and feel, making it up depending on what we feel like eating. The bread machine years were helpful in building our confidence and spoiling us rotten with fresh baked bread.
As for brand, my old bread maker was a Sunbeam but I have to say that I really like the quality of Zojirushi products.
Lynda