I've recently been impressed with the Specialized Sirrus line of flat bar road bikes. You might take a look at them and see what you think. I like that Specialized has ergonomic grips on them and you can go from a sub-$500 base model to a carbon frame high-zoot model running around $2000 but all on the same basic frame style.

I think one of these is going to become my pavement bike (but I still really like the Brompton folding bikes for their easy transportabilty and ride quality.