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Looks like you have a great budget and will have lots of options!
I think in my mind the key consideration for you will be if you want tracking in the telecope and to do astrophotography in the future. Do you want to do deep sky stuff from dark sky sites but also some planetary stuff from the city?
In my mind aperture always rules. With your budget you can always simply get a small portable instrument to hike with if you are keen on this (e.g. 80mm -100mm short focus refractor on a tripod). But having hiked for over 20 years, I think you will find that if you want to do astronomy stuff in the bush you are better off camping next to you car and have a bigger telescope that you can simply take out of the car. Then you can do your hiking from there without carrying everything.
My thoughts are you should go no smaller than an 8" telescope, so that means a fast reflector or a good quality SCT. If you go visual, a good quality 8" or 10" dobsonian will give you lifetime views. If you want tracking and in the future do some astrophotography (even pickyback - e.g. this year we will have some nice comets visible) go for a short focus reflector or a good quality 8" SCT.
Refractors are great, but visually an 8" dobsonian will kill even a very good quality 4" refractor in terms of brightness of objects, the colour you will see and the no. of objects (sorry to the refractor lovers out there) and you will soon be wanting more aperture.
But that's just my 2 cents of opiniated views and as always everyone will have different views based on their own journey.
Good luck with your choice and enjoy your astronomy journey!
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