I've been pretty happy with my Vision over the past year. The quality is pretty good if you ask me. It's not solid metal like Freedom, but it is definitely solid.

The heat rope is great...I've wired and re-wired my rack a few times and it was extremely easy...especially when I had 7 unexpected hatchlings come along and I had to adjust my rack....yep, half of the rack holds adults, and the upper two levels hold babies...I didn't have to buy a baby rack.

As far as I can remember, Jamie, there have been a few cases of flexwatt doing quite the melt job on tubs. T-stat malfunction? flexwatt malfunction? not wired properly? I dunno. Based on my limited experience, the heat rope has been easier to deal with and control over Flexwatt.