100mm refractor or 250mm dobsonian for occasional use?

(I have posted this is a couple of places to reach a wider audience, so
apologies if you see it twice)

I am looking for some advice on choosing the best telescope for me.

I had a Tasco refractor as a child, but living in London there was seldom
anything to see.
My interest in astronomy has recently been reignited by playing with a
camera lens adapter which acts as a very small telescope. I dug the old
telescope out of the loft, but the mount and tripod make it very
difficult to make any small adjustments, and the eyepieces have such small
fields of view that it is difficult to find anything.

I've decided to get myself a set of 7x50 or 8x40 binoculars and a telescope
for Christmas. Following my experience with the old telescope I want
something which can be smoothly moved around, and with the capability to
reach a reasonably wide field of view, which I've defined rather arbitrarily
as 2 degrees.

I'm not particularly interested in the moon or the planets. I'm drawn more
towards DSO and *finding* things. There is something of the pokemon about it,
the existance of things like the Messier, Caldwell, double star and such
lists give me something to aim for.

Of primary importance is that it has to be easy to setup, and not require
too much maintenance. This is going to be a dip in and out hobby for me, I'm
looking to use the telescope reasonably often, but probably not for much
more than an hour, maybe two, each time, as I've got to fit it in around
other things, and be up each day at 7am to goto work!

As far as an observation site goes, what I've got isn't great. I'm going to
be using it in my back garden or patio. Obstructions in most directions will
block out the lower portion of the sky, there is a reasonable amount of light
pollution, and anything looking NE-SE will be looking across house roofs, so
have heat-haze issues. Naked-eye visible magnitude on a good night is
probably about 4-4.5. Realistically I'm going to spend most of my observing
time here, and not get much of an opportunity to go to darker sites. It is
important that is easy to transport the telescope in and out the house, but
not that important that it is easy to travel with it.

The budget is about 300 GBP. That should be for a useable set of equipment,
OTA, mount and at least one eyepiece, although I'm not averse to buying
extras down the line.

Telescopes I have been considering at the price range are as follows: (in
order of increasing aperture)

Meade ETX-80AT
http://tinyurl.com/dvvo2
80mm f400 achromat refractor
Alt-Az GOTO mount
25mm(?) and 10mm(?) SP eyepiecess (approx 3deg and 1.25deg)
No finder
x2 Barlow included

Celestron NexStar 102SLT
http://www.dhinds.co.uk/pages/fullProd.php?id=463
102mm f660 achromat refractor
Alt-Az GOTO mount
25mm and 9mm (approx 1.7deg and 0.5deg)
Red dot finder

Skywatcher Startravel 102 (EQ1) with RA motor
http://www.sherwoods-photo.com/sky_w...atcher_fs.html
102mm f500 achromat refractor
GEM mount with slow-motion controls and RA motor
25mm and 10mm (approx 2.5deg and 1deg)
Red dot finder
(This is about 50 quid cheaper than the others)

Skywatcher Startravel 120 (EQ3-2)
http://www.sherwoods-photo.com/sky_w...atcher_fs.html
120mm f600 achromat refractor
GEM mount with slow-motion controls
25mm and 10mm (approx 2deg and 0.8deg)
Red dot finder
(To add an RA motor would be another 80 quid)

Revelation 10 Dobsonian
http://tinyurl.com/7zlos
250mm f1250 reflector
Dobsonian mount
26mm 2" eyepiece (approx 1.3deg?)
8x50 finder
(Or 200mm f1200 model at 200 GBP)

I've pretty much ruled out the Meade. I think the only reason I would choose
that is if I were certain I wanted to get into imaging with their DSI camera.

I'm not that bothered about having a GOTO scope, in fact I think it might be
too much of a temptation and take some of the fun out of the *finding*
aspect of astronomy. However I thought that having automatic tracking would
be useful, and the price of the Celestron with GOTO is comparable to a
similar aperture scope with RA motor, so it seems a reasonable deal.

The last scope is obviously the odd one out.
After my troubles with the first telescope I had pretty much decided that
any scope must be a wide-field one with slow motion controls, and given that
I'm not interested in the planets a short-tube achromat refractor seemed a
good match. My instictive reaction to seeing a dobsonian is that I couldn't
possibly point it well enough, or track anything through the sky. The added
maintenance of collimation is also off-putting, as is the idea of dust and
bits falling into the open tube. However it seems that everywhere I look the
advice is that dobsonians are very suitable for beginners and are actually
very easy to control, and it is hard to ignore the fact that I can get six
times the light-gathering capability of the Celestron for the same price.
The focal length is longer than I had been looking for, and hence the field
of view narrower, but with a 2" focusser I could get something like a Meade
4000QX 36mm and have 2deg field of view with the 8-inch model for the same
overall price of 300 GBP, and that is still four times the light gathering.
I've seen a lot of argument about whether large apertures are better or
worse in poor seeing conditions, but haven't really seen a good conclusion.

So my questions a

- Is an 8" or 10" dob suitable for a dabbler who want an hour here, and hour
there?
- How often am I likely to need to re-collimate the scope, and how long
would that take?
- Is it *really* possible to smoothly track objects with dobsonian mounts?
- How much deeper, and how much extra detail would I see with the
200mm/250mm reflector over the 100/120mm refractor.
- Is the larger aperture going to be suitable for my viewing conditions?
- Am I going to make the right decision? (Ok, that one isn't fair

Any help gratefully accepted.
Paul