I agree with fatpunk; for our weight (I also weighed 230 this morning), rear suspension needs to be tuned so stiff, why bother paying extra for it? Stick with hardtail, let your budget move from rear suspension into other components; better fork, better brakes, better drivetrain, dropper seatpost?

I would go even further though. Ditch the suspension fork as well, and go plus-size (3-inch) on the tires. Put all your suspension into air volume.

Personally, if I had $1600 to drop on a bike, I would buy a 2018-model (red) Surly Krampus and a bunch of carne asada burritos. This current version has a number of improvements over previous, most notably thru-axles, boost spacing, no 'jump tube', and braze-ons for racks (very un-Surly for the original Krampus to have no rack attachment points!)

[EDIT] what happened to red? website now shows available colors for Krampus of black and 'bruised ego purple' -- did they come out with another update when I wasn't looking?

https://surlybikes.com/bikes/krampus