I'm just starting to work that out -- a brief visit to my LBS was useful. The sales guy suggested a road test of 3 or 4 models. I'm looking in the 2K range, but I'm not biased at this point. One of the bikes we looked at was an 07 Trek 5000 - it was good to see the back and forth on the Trek 5000 vs CAAD 9 discussion over on the road cycling forums recently. No evidence that this one has a cracked frame though...
I'd love to hear any advice from the BF community.