A washer with bearing failure is rarely run until it actually dosen't work anymore. Usually, the noise (which you can't do much about except for lower spin speeda) gets way to loud before significant play is in the drum. Once the drum is abled to move up and down, it'll scrape on the heater, tub and seal causing something to fail in the end. But at that point, it long has not been safe to run that machine. Just one bad out of balance situation and the machine can tear itself apart, literally.
Side note: I don't think that one is ELux made, seems more like something along the lines of Little Swan or companions.
Recomendations for a new machine: Get what's cheap, add a good extended warranty, and you will be fine. Just check for a good RPM (if you only hangdry, 1000 or 1200 are ok, I personally believe that there however is no need to life with anything below 1400, and 1600 is great if you dry a lot in the dryer) and a good drum size that fits the needs (don't be fooled by KG ratings, there is information for pretty much any manufacturer out there that tells you the drum volume in liters; ~40l is good for singles, ~50l for couples or maybe 3 persons, 60l for your normal family of 4 or 5, and beyond 65l for big familys or just big amounts of laundry in general; what you have there should be something in the 50l range).
