Hi Redfox.
Just in regard to the Go To thing. The important thing to remember with Go To is that you are swapping aperture for convenience. A good 8" scope with GOTO is almost always going to cost more than a 12" dob, often several times more, yet you will see far less with it.
Go to any star party, and what are most of the visual observers using, dobs, usually manually driven. Why? Because aperture alway wins. If you really want a computer to do the work, get an Argo Navis. A GSO 12" dob with Argo is probably going to set you back about $2k, a Celestron 8" Nexstar (probably the most basic GOTO about) is about $2800 at the moment....I know which way I would go!
I luckily ended up with a 12" plain vanilla dob and couldn't be happier, get it out every chance I get.
Malcolm