For mine...the best all round performer would have to be a good size appature newtonian, on an eq mount..I started out with crap ebay scopes, both refractors and reflectors, then i went to the 8" dob..The all round views through this scope blew me away..But i soon wanted to start photo work, so i bought an eq mount later on and took the pivot rail thingy's off it..works a treat..But think mabye would have been cheaper to start out with the scope already on the eq...But that being said...it did take me quite a bit of practise to get to know how to use thw eq mount...quite demanding for a beginner, but whilst on the dob, set up time is 2 minutes(less some time to cool down)and with good startcharts from a good planetarium, i was finding multiple fuzzies evrytime i went out, which was almost every night...when i mounted on an eq my hours cut back dramatically beacuse of the setup and polar llignment procedure...they say the best scope is the one you use the most
