I agree that this cleaner would probably work well on a pool with a flat bottom, without too steep a transistion to the deep end, with not too many curves, and no other obstacles like ladders. Mine continually gets stuck on the drains. But I have moved it off the drains and watched it for 1/2 hour segments move back and forth over the same swath of pool between my ladder and the opposite side. I agree that if you babysit it and continually move it around, get it unstuck, etc, it probably does a decent job of vacuuming. But then it's not an automatic pool cleaner, it's semi-automatic. Does anyone know if the Aquabot is more adept with obstacles than the Dolphin, or if there exist any other automatic pool cleaners that are more adept. I think that much of my disappointment is the letdown after reading all of the positive reviews. I expected to drop it in the pool and take it out 4 (or 6 or 8) hours later with a clean pool. Instead I think that I now dedicate more time to pool cleaning that I did with manual cleaning.