I believe I've mentioned my stance on this before and possibly debated with you Parwaz (I seem to recall doing), and you make several valid points. Here most large stores don't sell cylinders at all. Most people seem to dislike them, they assume most of the things Parwaz has said (cumbersome, bulky, not as powerful, etc.).
I can completely understand why uprights are so popular. They are very convenient for quick runs through the house, getting up all the easily seen dirt and then quickly stored away. Back when my/my parent's home had more carpets it was usually easier to clean daily with an upright. Back then cleaning under furniture really didn't need to be done too often, and when I did I would almost always use a cylinder.
However since removing most of the fitted carpets in the house my perspective has changed quite a bit. You see with 2 dogs and a cat cleaning under furniture is something that
must happen almost daily. With few rugs and fitted carpets around to catch pet hair, a large portion of it congregates under every piece of furniture it can.
Honestly, an upright is hardly ideal for this. For starters, when is the last time you cleaned under a somewhat low piece of furniture with your dyson dc41? Or under beds for that matter. Now as MVacs rightly pointed out there are some very low upright vacuums, I had an X series Sebo for a number of years in fact. Sadly though no upright is low enough to clean under some of our furniture, you would have to use the hose.
This brings me to my next point, hose convenience. Now the obvious solution when using, say, my dc40 is to stick a flat-out tool on the end of the wand to get under furniture. I've done this a few times now, and here is my routine: Haul out the dc40 and the flat-out tool, begin cleaning with the upright. When I come to the first bit of furniture I stop, walk over to wherever I put the flat-out tool, grab it, pull out the wand on the dc40, attach the tool, get on my knees and clean up all the bits with the wand all while the stretch hose won't allow the dyson to be more than 5 inches from me at any given time (thanks to the "suck-back" action of the hose). So after I'm done letting the dc40 hit me repeatedly I have to put the wand back on (which with the dc40 can be fiddly) and set the flat-out tool somewhere. I do this for every single piece of furniture. (okay rant over)
Multiply by 20 and I hope you can understand why an upright gets very annoying to use very quickly. A cylinder requires much less effort and takes less time in my case. And the dc40 is one of the few uprights I can tolerate to use on hard floors anyway, yet it is STILL frustrating in comparison. Furthermore I find stretch hoses to be annoying for above floor cleaning, and most uprights lack suction control. For these reasons I also much prefer cylinders for above the floor cleaning.
they can't clean as well as uprights and the list goes on!
In the U.S at least this hasn't really been true since the 1970's. Cylinders here have historically had bigger motors (more airflow and suction) and have been sold with very good power nozzles. I can't count the number of cylinders I have used that clean carpets at least as well as the average upright.
Either way I can see your point Parwaz, but I hope you understand how an upright just doesn't work in my home.