My apologies, sir, if you feel I have offended you. it just seemed odd that you would blame flat tires on the bike, rather than the way you used the bike.
As for what to buy for $200, i would shop Craigslist, and i would get something with a steel frame most likely, or maybe not. I got my Canondale (when it was a few years old) for (I think) $150 and I paid $35 for my Raleigh at a yard sale about a year earlier.
I know there is a guy here, Johnny Mullet, who swears by older Huffys---good for him. He is as serious a rider as you and more than I, and they have been working for him. As i said, i had that one bad experience and never went back, but as a poster here once noted, "the plural of anecdote is not 'data'."
I am sure there are good Huffys and Denalis and whatever out there. I just tore up so many cheap bikes that I lost patience. The way I ride nowadays, I bet I could make it to the end of my days with an old Huffy. Such is the passage of time.