You can get the JRC 1500 for less than $1000 dollars. West Marine will match prices so all you have to do is print off a internet price with the shipping and handling and they will match that price and charge you price plus what ever the local tax rate is. I found a deal for like $875 when I bought mine and got it from West Marine for around $950 tax, tag and title. This will allow you to have some one local to take it back to if you have any problems.
As far as the performance I have used it under many conditions and it has performed very well for me. Once when night running in flat conditions I picked up objects smaller than a 5 gallon bucket on the water. It was plastic buoy markers that had been put out in the bay. The JRC takes a little time to get use to how to use it. Once you do you will find it is a very good unit. A few weeks after Ivan last year I found out in fog just how good the unit was. I was running in very dense fog with the range set to .5 miles. Some little blip appeared on the screen as I was running in the channel (had set unit extremely sensitive due to thick fog) so I motored down to figure out what it was. As I got closer the unit started picking up more little dots. Turned out it was post sticking just above the surface from a dock that had blown away. The channel marker that was on the dock side of the channel was gone so there was nothing there to let you know that you would have been out of the channel in danger either. I have also used it successfully to dodge rain and storms. I do think the extra 8nm of the 24 nm radars would be helpful in that area to give you more time to react. All in all I am very happy for the price I paid of what I have recieved out of the JRC1500. If you have any particular questions about the unit feel free to ask.
BTW JRC makes a color 24 nm Radar / GPS unit that you can pick up for between $1500 to $1600..
http://www.marinelectronics.com/JRC/jrc1800.htm