I can very much relate to your tales of bad experiences with poor telescopes. The scope I bought as a kid had a horrible mount, bad optics, and drove me away from astronomy for years. The clearance 8" SCT I picked up 8 years ago was much better, but finding objects took so long that showing folks anything other than a bright object was impossible, especially with the light pollution in the Chicago suburbs.

When I broke down and got the GO-TO scope, it was wonderful. It pointed to Neptune in the orange haze that had no stars for star-hopping. I can show folks as many objects as I want, with almost no delay in between.