Hmmm, sounds like a "Specialized" may be the way to go… for a clearly well-designed bike, and I will keep your $2,000 threshold in mind. For example, FSR xc Pro sounds like a decent bike, and it’s $1,900 MSRP. This may be a silly question, but do you mean MSRP or discounted price? Those are sometimes very different…
And yet another newbie question – what is "plbs"? I was searching on Google and cannot find. I know lbs, and pounds, of course.