Good advice: "
The eyepiece is half the telescope".
Spend whatever you can on a couple of good quality eyepieces. Don't worry about people knocking your scope - a good eyepiece is a fraction of the cost of a new scope and will make a big difference. The best bit is, if/when you up grade your scope down the track - the eyepieces transfer across. Most of my eyepieces are on their third scope!
I would recommend two good quality plossl eyepieces.
For myself, I am happy with my 32mm Televue plossl (which retails around $140 I think).
Don't go worrying about "Nagler" or "Panoptic" or other such expensive items with wider fov and many elements.
I had a cheap tasco refractor as a kid and bought a couple of good eyepieces and it made a cheap telescope not too bad.
