You've got a decent budget set aside, so now you need to step away from the computer and go visit any and all bike shops in your area and ride any and all bikes that strikes your fancy within budget. You're shopping for the LBS as much as the bike at this point.

Go for the test rides, narrow down your list a bit, then come back here and use us as a sounding board.

And the belt drive w/IGH is rather pricey. It didn't catch on as good as I'd hoped- was wanting more people to adopt that tech to drive the price down to where I might be able to snag it for myself.