When I was a kid, the amateur telescope to lust after was the Questar. While small, the optics were essentially perfect and the mechanical design was amazing. They were also very expensive.
I was recently thinking about them again and, as it turns out, they are still being made. A few emails to friends who are familiar with the current versions reveal that, if anything, the mechanics and optics are even better. In the good old days we measured an off the shelf Questar to 1/8th wave (Sodium D line, but we also did it with a laser) across all surfaces. Finding a commercial scope good to 1/4 wave at a single surface is generally difficult.
This is an amazing piece of machinery. For the money you can buy something of much larger aperture, but this is the small telescope to own if you value quality of qualities sake.
I'll take one of the seven inchers (the Physics dept had a seven inch with a case mounted on a Kelty backpack when I was an undergrad. I spent several wonderful weekends packing it in to very dark areas.
If you have an extra $4k to spend, the Qmax Spectrometer looks particularly desirable.
http://www.questarcorporation.com/questar.htm
sigh
6:13:07 AM 
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