The business end has a brush that's powered by the suction. We're talking about the only Dyson cannister to be marketed in the US, the DC11. Sadly they've discontinued it for the US market. Apparently uprights are more popular in the US. No idea when they'll re-introduce another cylinder (which they said they'd likely do at a later date - morons).

I think they'd do well with a small portable vacuum that would be much better than a dust buster as well as a central vac (though in this category a lot of models get installed by builders and there's no way they'd install anything decent by default).

Should still be able to get them new at retail or eBay I imagine though. I (still) quite like mine. So much so that I recently bought a few accessories from the UK as well as their 'Doing a Dyson' book (really great and creative composition/construction).

Bruno