Well, just to follow up: Thanks again for all the responses, very helpful, thank you everybody. I finally went with FlyWright's advice and got one of those Monrovia BestWay Hydro-Force inflatables, like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Bestway-Hydro-65049E-Mirovia-Inflatable/dp/B07TKNBKFH
Got an open-box deal on Ebay from a store in Lincoln, Nebraska so it arrived in just three days by Fedex. $579. We opened it up it up on the driveway and put it together. Our previous dinghy was a Zodiac Zoom Aero 260, air floor. The Zodiac lasted really well for us, we bought it in 2015 at Defender at the store in Waterford CT, paid about $800 for it at the time, on sale. We used it like crazy, dragged it up on rocky beaches, rolled it in and out of a plywood utility trailer at the beginning and end of each season. Most of the time it spent its life moored to the swim step baking in the sun (we got a cover for it but I was usually too lazy to put the cover on every time we left the boat). Lasted six years of heavy use so I think we got our money's worth. But finally the transom attachment failed badly on one tube, and it had become too small for my wife, me, two boys and the small dog, so time for a new one. Here's my initial review of the Bestway so far:
The Bestway is two feet bigger in length and a foot wider, (about 10'6" long) but seems much bigger in the driveway. Like wow bigger. The capacity plate doesn't make a lot of sense to me though. Says it's rated for 876 lbs of people, or five persons, but 1,400 lbs of people and gear total. Not sure how that works -- seems to me a pound is a pound, human flesh or a tackle box, but okay. Rated for up to a 15 hp outboard. We have a Yamaha 4hp two-stroke so we won't be testing that rating either way. It has two bench seats rather than the Zodiac's one, and they're much nicer -- the Zodiac was painted plywood, the Bestway seats are textured aluminum (both sides) and the brackets seem better quality. The Bestway oars are collapsible and much easier to place on the oarlocks -- they simply drop over a threaded pin on the side tubes and then you screw a tethered threaded ball onto the pin. The Zodiac had a very cumbersome oarlock arrangement that required a particular alignment athwart the tubes to lock them in. The inflator fittings on the Bestway also seem easier to use - you turn a 1/4" star knob in the inflator valves to inflate/deflate, very easy. The Zodiac valves had buttons that worked kind of like the plunger on old ballpoint pens, click click, that sometimes didn't work well.
Both models are airfloor -- that's my preference. Makes for a lighter, more buoyant dinghy overall and they're easier on knees and bare feet, and for long runs we have to toss the dinghy over the bow rail and store it upside down on the bow so we have to keep it light. Both have air floors, Zodiac and Bestway were both nice and stiff and went in easily. Oddly though the Bestway has a board that slides into a sleeve under the airfloor that keeps it from curling up side to side. The Zodiac had clips in the transom that kept the airfloor from slipping around. The Zodiac had metal mounting plates for the outboard, the Bestway has plastic, but plenty beefy in my opinion. The external gas tank tie-down is in a more sensible place in my opinion on the Bestway -- near the transom. The Zodiac had it under the center seat - and the sun ate the nylon strap to powder by the end of the first summer. The foot-powered inflator that came with the Zodiac is much better than the "air hammer" piston pump that came with the Bestway. Luckily the Bestway and Zodiac use the same air valve sizes so the inflators and fittings are interchangeable. The Bestway has tapered tube ends, the Zodiac had blunt rounded ends. The Bestway sure looks more aerodynamic, although we'll see if it really makes any difference in the water.
Finally both inflatables came with a canvas (well, nylon) wrapper, like a big burrito wrapper. The Bestway is much better in my opinion, with wider, heavier straps and four carrying handles. The Zodiac wrapper had two 1" straps that were brutal on your hands. Okay, there it is. I'll be interested to see how it behaves in the water.
