My wife rides a Specialized Sequoia and loves it. I ride a Surly Long Haul Trucker and at 6'5", I can ride comfortably for 65 or 70 miles and my back doesn't hurt.

One of the suggestions posted is that your friend needs to ride more, on a differently-designed bike geometry, to know what his preference will be. My Surly was built up and cost me around $ 1300. Haven't had to replace anything in 3 years except tubes. The Brooks saddle is even with the handlebars but that's my comfort zone. There's a Surly LHT for around $900 complete these days.

I think the main difference your friend might discover is that a bike that is $800 to $1000 will be so much better than the cruiser he's riding now that he'll find a whole new world of possibilities opened up. Certainly that was my experience after I had several thousand miles on my old Giant mt. bike converted to cruiser. By that time I knew how I wanted another bike to fit.