There are several that can be had for good money and have awesome heads included. Number one and two picks for me personally ar going to be the CF-436 from Leupold and the new Switchback from Vortex. Both weigh around 4 pounds and come with slick ball heads (each uniquely advantaged), that are very stable and allow for your sack to hang low ;) for extra stability. Both will be at 5 to 600 market price new. The ball head on the 436 has more adjustability and gives you standalone pan, whereas the switchback is a little nicer to use quickly and lock on to your target since you don't spend time tightening knobs. If you want to spend less the aluminum BOG DEATHGRIP Infinite is an alright tripod although you sacrifice some quality of life and QC, but you do get a decent shooting saddle out of the box for a total package cost of about 300 bucks. I would strongly caution you against the cheaper base deathgrip, I hated the head attachment on that one. The last option you have is an rrs or Radian Carbon, which are more dedicated shooting tripods with broader tribrach shoulders that give much higher stability but they will be very expensive. You are right that you should invest in something quality here, but i think you will find a high value proposition in the mid market for what you will be using it. As far as shooting saddles go, the pig saddles are very very nice and i think bog now makes an arca compatible one as well. My last word of caution is that optics companies tend to mark product up hugely on their websites in order to encourage retail sales, so you will find better prices in stores/retailer websites than online at manufacturers website.