Masters Of War said:
ps. Just out of curiosity how far away is the ion/micron from my what I need?
To put it mildly, they don't even come into the vicinity of what you're looking for. At least not for pianos and organs.
The thing about tripped out sound FX, drones and such it's probably not as much about your sound source as what you do with it afterwards via FX processors (ring modulators, flangers, phasers, distortion, reverb, delay... etc), and other post-processing, such as extreme time stretch/compression, pitch shifting and the like.
Ultimately, in your price range you'll have to decide what sort of sounds are the most important to you as most likely you won't find one instrument that's good at all of them... even if you triple your price range that statement still holds true. For example, with sample based stuff you won't have the real time control of the Hammond drawbars, let alone the Leslie emulation that's such a big part of that sound, as you'd get with instruments dedicated to such emulations.
Having said this, I still believe that actual samplers would give you the most flexibility, specifically because you won't be tied to one built in soundset, and then as the time goes by and funds become available you'll be in a position to decide what you need to supplement it.
One final thought, don't be gun-shy about some of the complexity that you'll encounter. My very first electronic instrument was
the Kurzweil K2600, a rather complex instrument even by the standards of seasoned synthesists. But i'm glad I did, because the stuff that I learned on it has made it very easy for me to get to grips with pretty much any other synth I've come accross. It took a while for me to get the hang of it, but I'm glad I stuck with it as it paid off in the long run.