I've always wondered why central vacuum systems never took off. We recently moved into a house that was built in that sweet spot in the late 80s / early 90s when central vac was getting pretty popular, and we love it. Quiet, light (you're not hauling around a motor) and with lots of wall inlets, you can vacuum the whole house with a pretty short hose. In my view, this was peak vacuum design, and they perplexingly seemed to go out of style and are not built into newer homes.
The investment is quite big, I don't know about maintenance but I would expect these air ducts need to be cleaned regularly. Then you need to switch the hose many times to clean the whole house, right? I'm using dyson v12 slim battery vacuum and I'm quite happy. Battery lasts for almost 50 minutes, it's easy to empty, quite lightweight and the green light illuminating the floor is so useful. I don't see why I would ever consider the central one.
