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I'd advise to go straight to mono.
I went to Mono about 3 months into my astro life, no hassle at all. I'm not a photographer, so dont have a background in this stuff... its just a week or two of playing with things and then its just the way it is, which I find is the same with most gear/software changes with this game. Maybe 10 years ago before pxinsight it was tough to integrate a mono image, but not anymore.
I don't think it takes any more time than OSC in acquisition, and maybe a few more minutes in processing in some situations. In fact, the methods that OSC users seem to use to approximate a mono set up (synthetic luminance layer, separate narrowband data from colour image, etc) probably make the OSC a longer overall process on anything but a very simple RGB image.
The flexibility increase is real, and the number of nights you can image, and types of targets to image on those nights, is increased. You can differentially focus each filter, which is MASSIVE when imaging with refractors, even Apo refractors.
The cost difference, well, if you start looking at tri-band and quad-band filters for OSC, there is barely any price difference at all. Lots and lots of people are stoked on their narrowband-esque images with these filters, and yeah, they do look good. The biggest thing to keep in mind here is that the bayer matrix is still there, which means that you are getting only 1 in 4 pixels picking up your Ha wavelengths... ONE IN FOUR! Your 20mp camera is now a 5mp Ha sensor. I suppose you can drizzle or whatever, but then you're really starting to lose the "easier to use" aspect of OSC.
If you're thinking that mono is going to add a heap of weight, it needn't. Yes, my zwo 1600 has a smaller sensor than the current 2600, but it, with filter wheel and filters only about the same. My newt and refractors, each with standard focuser, has no problems lifting/locking the camera at all. If going a 2600mm, the 5 pos filter wheel is 500g... not the end of the world at all.
Finally, astro has taught me the value in buying once (at least for a while), and like people are saying, the progression might be DSLR - OSC - Mono, but to me thats a $2000-3000 step for little reason, and since I'm on a budget, I don't think I'd have gotten past the OSC.
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