Mount Upgrade Options coming from SWSA2i

I’m looking for upgrade options and opinions for a mount upgrade. I recently sold my Sky Watcher Star Adventurer 2i. I am sticking to under a $1000 budget. I know there will be some suggesting I save up longer to get X or Y, this is not that thread. I know the options open up if I increase my budget by another $500-$1500, but that isn’t in the cards right now.

For the foreseeable future, I’ll be imaging with a full frame mirrorless Nikon Z5 mirrorless camera and various camera lenses ranging from 85mm f1.8 to a 70-300mm f6.3. I recently added a mini-pc with running NINA. I’m looking to add guiding this year as well. And soon I hope to add a nice little refractor to focus primarily on deep sky objects. I shoot from a bortle 6 suburban backyard. I’m not going backpacking with it, but I’m not going to rule out throwing it into the truck and heading west to darker skies.

I was originally thinking of simply going to a SWSA GTi, knowing that a harmonic drive mount was still out of my budget. Yet, I can’t help but think there are many options that exist between a SWSA 2i and an AM3. Are there smaller traditional equatorial mounts? Sky Watcher EQM-35 or newly announced EQ-AL55i? What about Celestron or iOptron? Are there used mounts that possibly fit in my budget? Has a Juwei-17 been out long enough to prove itself as capable, dependable, and user friendly enough to consider?

Thank you for your advice.