Schwinns, mid to late 80's, Columbus Tenax.
Peugeots' upper end
Royal Regina
Many British Marques
Schwinn Paramount

OP; Recommend looking for a clean Bianchi NR or SR from the mid-1980's. In Celeste green of course. These have nice Columbus tubed frames and mostly Campy bits. Can be found at really good prices and are from before things started to get proprietary and complicated.

/K

Your starting point for vintage does not need to be insanely expensive or even European. Late '70s to mid 80's Treks in Reynolds 531 or Ishiwata 022 are going to be well within your price range, as will Peterson-era Bridgestone road bikes (RADAC, RB-1, RB-2, RB-T, XO-1, XO-2). Handling of those makes tends to be pretty neutral, particularly in the case of the Bridgestones.

Italian bikes are different in character, even when the are built from the same tubes and use the same parts groups. Some have handling which is just way too fast outside of the peloton, and so are not fun to ride unless you drink way too much of that horrible espresso like the Italians do. Tommasini and Rossin are two that got it right and have good artisan build quality (particularly the former). Other names to consider (though you'd better ride them first) are Masi, Colnago, Frejus, De Rosa. Columbus SL rides the best, with the SLX slightly behind it.

French bikes require French parts or a hell of a lot of intrepidity. Since many of the French parts were, shall we say, merde (oh, Simplex, why did you think Delrin was a good idea?), the intrepidity is required more often than not. It allows you to retrofit SunTour derailleurs and extra-duty Sakae Ringyo or Nitto stems in place of the evil AVA death stems that too often came standard on those bikes. The payoff is ride quality. Very few bikes can match the smoothness of a PX-10 or Grand Jubilee.

You can find one even cheaper if you do not hold out for Celeste. (Been there ... done that. Nothing wrong w/ early 1980s, but sorry, it's not for sale. )

I see you list the Royal Regina as being on a list of bikes equal to a good Japanese bike frame. Do you have any info on this brand as I have just acquired one. I've been unable to find any info about it or even this brand. The bike is in reasonable physical condition but the paint has many years of bike rack and lock abuse. The saddle has been replaced with a modern gel that is self destructing, so that may be my first upgrade. That would follow the tires which look like they might be of similar age of the late 60s bike. But amazingly they held air and the bike ride very nicely. Needs some tuning but overall very smooth and quick.
lhope you have more knowledge or can direct me to some resources.
l

I've only seen a couple, and a Belgian Browning, which seemed quite similar. Quality looked above the sort of things you saw with other basic bikes of that era, decent finish. Not heavy, but I would not have classified it as what we would now think of as a lightweight. At about that time, I came into posession of a bike made by Matthias Stollenwerk of Aachen, also very similar. Good European consumer 10 speeds, but I thought they were better than Asian imports of the time. But I also have to say that we did not see many Asian bicycles in the Midwest in the 70's. Schwinn was the common heavyweight consumer bike, as well as Columbias, and Raleigh and French Bicycles were your step up.