Hello all,
First, let me apologize for my utter newbness to the modern world of cycling. I've done some searching and have picked up bits and pieces, but thought I'd lay out what I'm looking for here and seek guidance. If this thread is a beaten dead horse, link me! Links to other posts are helpful! I have yet to visit a local bike shop but hope to gain more knowledge from the interweb before I walk in the salesman's door.

As a young fellow, I burned the back roads/trails up for hours a day. Older and much larger, I'm looking to get back into some riding. Pretty big guy, 6'2-3", 250# and working on cutting that down.

Price range. I wish I could keep this to 500, but what looking I've done it seems it will be tough to get a quality piece in that range. Anything much over 1200 or so will push it down the wish list, but I'd rather wait a little longer and not wish I had a better tool later.

Use. While I'd love to have a fully rigged mountain bike, reality is the majority of my riding will be on pavement, hard pack, gravel, and narrow trails. This is where I need the guidance and why I've arrived at the "hybrid" forum. Reality is likely 45% pavement, 35% unimproved roads/trails/gravel, 20% more technical/mountain rides if I had a piece that'd do it all efficiently. The idea of a lockout front suspension would likely be for me, I think??

So this is where I'm at. Any suggestions on things to research or directions to look from the educated folks would be much appreciated. Anything I need to know to look for when sitting on bikes at the sales shop would help the cause. Also any features that are must haves and why. Brands to steer clear of or to stick to, Trek, Giant, etc?

Thanks for any other advice as well.