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Do you have a dimmed down flashlight (get a regular small one, and tape red or white insulation tape over it). Then go outside with your planisphere, face north or south, hold the planisphere overhead, and use your little flashlight to find the constellations and brightest stars.
After you've figured that out, you can do the same with your Bright Star Atlas, and it will all make sense.
I've got bad astigmatism, which starts to make images bad with a 3mm exit pupil from the eyepiece, but I'm fine with smaller exit pupils.
When I'd get a new eyeglass scrip, I'd ask the optometrist to cut/grind my old lenses down to 1.25". Then I'd stick the right eye one onto my 40 and 32mm eyepieces with Blutack. And I've stuck a set into my Nikon 10X70 binoculars to get decent images. Basically, if I wear my eyeglasses, I can't read my star atlases - so I'm better off sticking the eyeglass lenses on troublesome eyepieces. But this may not be an issue for you, as you can just wear your glasses on long eye-relief eyepieces.
In my 14.5" dob, I also use a 2" 40mm eyepiece which delivers a 9mm exit pupil. So technically it "wastes" light because my pupil can't take it all in. But what I've found is that I can tilt my eye's angle - and the astigmatism disappears, without cutting out part of the image, as would happen with a smaller exit pupil.
With respect to eyepieces, you will have to decide whether or not you are "fussy". I've met plenty of people who can't stand distortion at the edge of wide angle and ultra wide angle eyepieces. If you are one of them, start saving as you won't be happy with anything but premium expensive eyepieces.
But if you aren't "fussy", then you may well be nearly as happy with inexpensive to moderately priced eyepieces on long focal ratio telescopes or moderately priced eyepieces on shorter focal ratio telescopes like the 10" dob. Edge distortion doesn't bother me too much, unless I actually see stars turn into seagull shapes at the edges - which is too annoying, and the stars will be heavily distorted in much of the field as well.
Anyhow, with Ebay and Ice in Space trading, if you do buy something you don't like, you can recoup some of your money.
Good luck,
Renato
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