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That is probably great advice. If you can get to a local meeting you are likely to get a look through various types of scopes to see what works for you. The best thing is though that you can see if it really does fire your imagination at the cost of only a nights sleep before you hand over the hard earned.
All that said, a Dob of about 8" or more apeture does seem to be the default setting when first scope advice is asked for. My first scope experience was with a 4.5" newtonian (Same basic scope as a dob) on a german equatorial mount at 14 years old. Despite having no experience in setting the mount up (But some basic idea) meaning it was pretty hard to use, I chanced a glimps of Saturn on the first night completely at random and I was hooked. If it was not for that chance sighting I would probably have given it up as a bad joke after that first weekend.
Dobs are easy to use, easy to use is good! Cold and frustrated is a good way to go sour on the idea.
About the only other way to have real "Easy to use" is the computerised scopes like I have now but you pay a big premium for the sophistication of the mount and if you go small in apeture to claw back that cost premium then you stand a good chance of ending up frustrated again.
I really do like my current scope (Though work and life in general means it does not see the sky as often as I would like) but there are times I would love to freedom of just carting out a big dob, having a beer while it cools down and then pointing it wherever I like without electronics getting in the way of things.
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