I use the food processor mostly for chopping veggies, grinding crumbs and nuts, and little else. I have a Cuisinart Power Prep Plus, which I think is 14 cups, and a Cuisinart MiniPrep, which is great for chopping a lot of herbs and so forth. I've had 2 or 3 other Cuisinart models over the years, starting from around the time they first came out. I prefer the Power Prep because the bowl and all of its various parts are easier to assemble and disassemble than were the earlier models. I have a complete set of slicing and grating disks, which I bought for my old DLC7 (they fit the Power Prep).
All have worked well, never had a problem with any of them -- except for cracking around the safety interlock on one of the earlier models, but a replacement bowl was easy to find and not too expensive. If I were to replace the machine, I wouldn't even consider another brand, primarily because of my positive experience with my machines.
That said, I have to say I rarely use either machine. In short, they're a pain in the tush to assemble, disassemble, wash, dry, and put away. I use the MiniPrep more often then the big machine, mostly for making fresh bread crumbs or chopping a pile of herbs -- it's a lot simpler and has fewer parts to deal with than the big machine. Still, the bottom line is that I hardly ever have enough chopping to do to justify the trouble of using the machines. It's much faster to chop by hand unless I'm making something that calls for a ton of veggies -- carrot cake comes to mind, as does minestrone. What's more, I find that the machines produce somewhat uneven results -- there's some variance in the size of the pieces, and they tend to be irregularly shaped, particularly if I need anything other than a fine mince. I get much more uniform results with a knife, which is about 100 times easier and faster to set up, tear down, and clean.
So, here's my question for you: are you SURE you want one of these gadgets? It's probably the first thing I would part with if I had to reduce the size of my kitchen -- although I do like the Mini Prep for making crumbs, so I would keep it! Of course, if you do make things in large quantities, especially things that require a lot of chopping, they're great to have.