hey. i just bought a rockshox recon for the equivalent of around 230 us dollars. i think thats a real good fork for the money. it has compression damping and rebound damping adjustments. mine is the coil u turn version, though i mostly keep mine at 100 mm travel (though i did turn it up to 130 mm today while doing a ****load of stairs )

anyway. i dont have much experience with forks, but the recon is miles better than my stock manitou and though i dont have much to compare the recon with, it has some good reviews by others that do. maybe if you look around you could find a 2006 for cheap. its a nice matte black color too.