Hi Daemon, and welcome.
I've just gone through pretty much this same process myself. I originally bought the LX200GPS 8" with a wedge for Astrophotography. Very happy with the OTA quality, though I did find the wedge very frustrating. But that's only my experience, others have used it, made modifications to it and love it. It frustrated me enough to sell the scope, buy a new 8" Meade OTA and mount it on a Losmandy GM-8. IMHO its the only way to go if you are considering a serious step into the astrophotography field. Not necessarily those particular items, but definately OTA and GEM. Plus guidescope.
If you are looking at 10 or 12" OTA then a very beafy mount like the G-11 or the Skywatcher EQ6 or the Celestron CGE. All can be GOTO driven in some form. The Losmandy with the Gemini as an extra, I'm not sure about the base configuration of the others though.
For CCD imaging, I use the Canon 300D though its main limiting factor is the IR filter attached which removes a lot of the lower red spectrum. An option if your interested in this line is the new Canon 20Da which has been modified by canon specifically for astrophotography, but with the use of filters on the lens can still be used for "normal" photography. I haven't seen much about Meades recently released B&W DSI, so no comment
Hopefully others here who have had more experience with dedicated astrophotography CCDs will pipe up with their opinions.
To get an OTA, good GEM, guidescope, ToUcam (planetary imaging and autoguider) Autoguiding emulator, and CCD/CMOS camera you will be giving that $10,000 a serious nudge. EG Approx - Meade 8" $1600, Orion guidescope/widefield - $695, Losmandy G-8 with Gemini $4500, Canon 300D $1300, guide rings, focal reducer, associated accessries, $500-$1000, ToUcam plus adapter $200, Guiding emulatorif needed $100 (go for a starmate $200 you'll love it) and that's all just for starters. I read somewhere that if you have $XXXXX to spend on just mount and OTA, spend 2/3 on the mount and 1/3 on the OTA.
Hope that's helped a bit