top instrument makers-a bit late

When looking at C&E news(yes, I do read it when the American Chemical Society sends it to me) I found an article about top instrument makers. I'm curious about this sort of thing because I don't ever have that much opportunity to compare expensive instrumentation. I'm not writing grants, and when I've gone to conferences, most of the people know that i'm not the one writing the grants, or really spending the money. Though I did get to help pick out the previous ICP, and think I did a pretty good job of it. But in this article, Perkin Elmer was rated over Varian. I was a bit surprised to see that, but maybe that's because I've been unable to get through to Perkin Elmer at all in this job. really. E-mail just bounces back to me. I don't really want to spend all my time in the day on the phone, though that's the next step. How is this good customer service? I know I sound like a shill and it's kind of true, but really, I've just not been impressed.
This makes me wonder, what makes a good instrument? Is it customer service? Is it never having to call customer service ever? Is it speed of analysis(kind of a big one for me) is it accuracy(really hard to always claim it's the instrument, at least with what I've done, since sample prep introduces so much more inaccuracy).
but first, I will summarize their list
Number one, both last year and this year, was a company I don't know what about, Life technologies. I'm in the wrong part of chemistry, but good for them.
Number 2 both years was thermo Fishcher Scientific. I've used their FTIR for a while, it works. Though I don't really do enough detail work to say "oh yeah, this is a great IR". But they got the job done. Waters and Shimadzu switched from 5 to 4 and 4 to 5 between last couple of years. That's really the only motion in the top 10, until Mettler-Toledo moving from 10 last year to 11. and RocheDiagnostics moving from 13 to 10. I actually liked the Mettler-Toledo TGA that I have used.
you can see the full rankings, as well as what they're based on here, but you do have to be a member. I'm not going to copy everything. https://pubs.acs.org/action/showLogin?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fpubs.acs.org%2Fisubscribe%2Fjournals%2Fcen%2F88%2Fi17%2Fhtml%2F8817bus1.html&cookieSet=1
Now. What makes a good instrument to me
1. software that I can figure out and make do what I want. really really key. Don't have a bunch of parameters that have to be entered that you don't tell me about in order to do calculations that I don't care about. I was dismissive of this in grad school, but am starting to appreciate it more. Flexible software is great.
2. Easy sample prep/robust sample possibilities. I don't really know how to describe this, since it's more an "I'll know when I see it". And I'm kind of a hypocrite for liking ICP and saying this. Everything that i do has to be completely dissolved in water. If someone gives me a sample with solid flakes, i have to get them out somehow. Not fun. My ideal instrument would accept a variety of sample preps
3. robust instrument. In a lab, things get left around, harmless spills happen from time to time(I'm thinking things like water, and very very dilute acid solutions). is this going to ruin everything? I hope not.