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Gidday Ben,
I back Suzy in her comments 100%. We had an offline discussion about aperture, light gathering capability, and field of view and then did a rough comparison between Suzy' 6" and my 10". Sure I get a lot more faint fuzzies but you will find that you'll go mad on the planets before anything else. Just wait till August mate!!
The point I want to make is that at some point in your viewing you're going to want to get a Barlow lens if you haven't already. As you may know this will increase whatever EP you happen to be using at the time double!! (e.g 10mm with 2x Barlow = 5mm)
Now, bearing this in mind the closer you get to a planet the more atmospheric abberation you are going to get (hazy, fuzzy, wobbly, limited contrast etc.) In a scope like a 6" this is kept to a minimum. Once you talk 8" and above these factors start to compound until the stage where you need an exceptional night to see planets nice and close. Of course maybe some of this can be overcome with additional filters and better EP's but not drastically so. With a 10" like mine you need to go to 2" Barlows and Ep's which start getting expensive for good quality viewing.
My advice stay with the 6" as long as you can; Invest in a GOOD quality barlow (2x) and some decent EP's (say 7.5, 10, 12, 15, 18, up to 25). Planned and staged as your viewing confidence grows wont break the bank and give you a lifetime of rewarding viewing. I gawked thru Suzy's scope a couple of weeks ago at a highly light polluted site and I was getting more than enough DSO's, more than I could deal with.
As your viewing likes and dislikes change, grow and mature you'll have a better idea of how big you really need to go. Good things come in small packages mate!!
That's my 2bobs worth anyhow
Cheers,
John
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