Hi Paddy,
Thanks for the advice. I am a little concerned, myself, about grabbing a kit for around $350.00, Meade or otherwise, and ending up with half the EP's unusable in my 10" f5 (f4.72).
With my scope, my 25mm is most used as I'm always on the lookout for clusters and nebulae, not to mention galaxies (eg Sombrero M104). However I get frustrated as I want to get closer and obviously still keep a decent FOV. When I drill down to a 10mm this becomes an issue.
I recently borrowed a friend's Meade 18mm s4000 SWA (6 element I think, maybe 8) and was
immediately impressed. Both in terms of 68 deg FOV appar. (I dont really want wider until my 20" SDM pipe dream comes true
) and the resolution. Not to mention the finer focusing ability this gave to my Crayford. Really pinpoint wide views and no coma/astigmatism. Colour was great and natural. So begins my
Odyssey. I was looking at Star Optics here on the Gold Coast and they have a kit of s4000 Meades but they are 52* and 4 element. The filters and barlow are what drew me in, but I'm thinking now that these are cheap enough to by at individual purchase.
Alex (Mental) gave me a rundown of EP's that have great specs through Andrew's Communications but I don't want to get into a kaleidoscope of EP's in my collection as it's too easy to treat one as a favourite and poo poo the others. My EP collection is a work in progress and I like to work all the EP's in my collection regularly. There is plenty of opportunity to do this on any given night. So this is the other major attraction for a kit.
The other thing I feel I want to do is make a commitment at this stage of the hobby to either 1 1/4" or 2" and build a decent collection from there. This is based on some comments of another friend who owns a 20" SDM. But he works with 2" Naglers and the like at $900 a pop.
Therefore now I'm thinking the Meade s5000 EP range. Star Optics has a kit but there are only 3 in it all 2" and all with 8 element lenses. A whopping 100* FOV has me wondering about overkill in my little 10".
I've a deep love for planetary and lunar but my fast scope is not ultimately suited (don't worry I'm looking at a slow 8" refractor for this-Another Pipe Dream).
We're talking economies of scale here as I'm a broke mature age student scraping through an IT Diploma. I guess all of this blah blah is a reaction to my situation and an acknowledgement of people like yourself and Mental and that I'm not just trying out your opinions but giving my side of the coin and saying I want to make miracles happen on a real tight budget.
I like menatls advice about learning more about eye physiology and making the most of what you've got. I like your advice about being patient and seeing what might end up cascading off the rainbow.
I'm really comfortable with second hand as I know from club experience that amateur astronomers have a tacit ability to look after their gear.
So, some filters (broadband) a good 2x Barlow and say a couple of high power (3 & 5mm), midrange (15 & 18mm) and Low (30 & 35mm) possibly in 2" category would be a go.
Actually, I feel a need to close this thread and start a new one with these specs in mind and hope that one day someone will have something to sell to a guy who knows how to take care of them.
Thanks again Paddy, (hope I haven't put you to sleep) 
Cheers,
John