By the time you travel around looking at all those different bikes you have probably added a few hundred dollars to your price tag in gas and time.

As was eluded to earlier, many of the recommendations here are simply preferences of those making the same. As I have fairly recently gotten back into cycling after a 15 year hiatus I have faced much the same choices as if I never rode before, except that I had preconceived notions about frame materials, components, and even riding styles that were left over from when I used to look through catalogs and hang out at a bike shop when I was a kid.

What I have found is that there are so many choices and so many pros and cons and overlap in bike style and uses that I just bought a couple and rode them both, changing out parts as I went along. I have sold the ones I don't need on eBay and used spare parts to experiment with other builds. It has made me a better mechanic than I would be just maintaining one bike and has been a lot of fun to boot. Sure, I wasted some money in all of it, but so is being stuck with a bike you want to upgrade. Having tried a lot of bikes in person will make you better at buying online too because you should be familiar with what geometry works for you.

For me, I found that a flat bar cyclocross conversion with a few sets of wheels with different tires works best for the rail trail riding that I do. When I was a kid that bike would have been just called a hybrid... 1 chainring or 3 up front shouldn't change that.

Good luck.