I have a VP112 and it compresses watermelon and pineapple well - but as well as the "better" models I can't say - and the normal rules do apply in that putting them through the compression/infusion cycle more than once seems to improve the process.
Flash pickling is a snap and liquids at room temperature (of a cold kitchen in winter) will quite happily boil in the chamber if given the chance). The extra height means that it's great for quite large vacuum boxes, there's no need to use the hose! I just put food to infuse in the box with the marinade, put the box in the chamber and let it work its magic - the air gets sucked out of the box through the one way valve which snaps shut when air goes back into the chamber.
It's not as controllable as more advanced sealers and the vacuum is defined by time rather than pressure so it's useful to have one eye on the pressure gauge and another on the stop button for manual intervention. Another problem is that thicker liquids (like chowder) have a tendency to out-gas after the bag has sealed so I usually give them an initial cycle without the bag being over the sealing bar to free as much trapped air as possible before doing a proper vacuum and seal, I assume that this can be a problem with any chamber sealer not just the VP112.
I'm quite happy with my VP112, and it's just about portable so I occasionally use it at different sites - something that's much harder to do with the bigger models due to the weight and in most cases the need to drain the oil from the lubricated pump models before transport.
