Outlawracer,
One of the other posts hit the nail on the head. Sit on and ride as many different bikes as you can. Just because you have brand loyalty isn’t a good enough reason. I had always had Speshes but when upgrading to full squish from my hardtail, I tried spesh, trek, fisher, cannondale, gt, and giant. It turned out that the Trek Fuel Ex 8 was the one for me but i’d assumed i’d like the Stumpy more…..I was wrong. I recently got my wife on a giant anthem x29er at an open day and couldn’t believe the smile on her face. Feel it, ride it, choose it.
Happy hunting.