I used leaf vacuums exclusively for 4 or 5 years, and finally switched back to raking. I found that raking was about 1/4 the effort overall for about 90% of the cleanliness, so I quit. The two leaf suckers I have are still sitting in my garage, destined for a garage sale at some point.
If you’ve never raked before, take it slow. Switch arms on every row. Don’t try to rake it all into one pile; when it gets heavy, bag up that row and start again.
Next year, mow instead. You paid good money for the fertilizer in those leaves. The chopped leaves will decompose over the winter, leaving you with a better lawn.
If you live where chiggers lurk in drying leaves, you can fend them off by dribbling whiskey on your socks. Chiggers can’t be boozers, you know. 
My brother and I were painting a house and decided that the leaf blower in it’s suck mode would be perfect to vacuum up the peeling paint that we had to scrape off the house first.
Worked great,
till I vacuumed up a nail (just a little one!), :eek:
and it stopped sucking. 
The nail destroyed the leaf blowers impeller, :mad:
and we had to finish the clean-up by hand. 
My preferred method, run the lawnmower over the yard with the bagger off and no discharge chute.
Then run the mower with the bagger in place (if you want to use them as mulch for your beds or compost, or don’t, just leave them as mulch for the lawn).
This shreds the leaves to a size that packs better (so you don’t have to empty the bag as often) and composts faster than whole leaves.
CMC +fnord!
I agree on the gasoline operated garden implements- I think having cans of gasoline around is dangerous, so I won’t do it unless I have to. Plus, I hate the sound and smell of gasoline operated garden implements.
But I’m lazy, don’t have much upper body strength, and as a geek I’m a True Believer in easier living through gadgetry, so I’m good with electrical garden implements. I’m hoping there’s something electrical that will make that job a lot easier.
Update: my FIL grabbed his leaf vac back yesterday, so I was not able to get the make and model. Sorry - but they do exist!
It’s not quite what you asked for, but the John Deere lawn sweeper works like magic on our large lawn.
I lower the wheels on my bagging push-mower and mow the sidewalks and the street near the curb after I edge. When I’m cutting the grass, it sucks up all the pine needles, and if the grass has stopped growing like it is now, I still pass the lawn-mower just to get rid of the pine needles.
Also, when I was a kid, my aunt had a couple of big Chinese Tallow trees in front of her house and they would dump massive amounts of leaves in the street and on the sidewalk in front of her house and in the spring, they have these yellow tails that fall all over the place. She bought a Billygoat lawn vacuum to keep the street and sidewalk free of leaves and other debris from the trees. I think she paid $100 for it in a pawn shop.
Billy Goat See the first one on the website. They’ve been making that model since 1970.