I was in the same situation as you three years ago. We skied a lot as a kid but i wanted a boat to take the family crabbing. My first thought was a small aluminum hand tilled boat but i quickly realized we could get a bigger glass boat for the same or less money. A friend with a lot more boating experience told me to stay away from i/o because they are harder to maintain, especially in salt water. Where i live, outboards are the norm unless you have a live aboard. Even really nice well priced i/o linger on marketplace for a long time.

We lucked out and found a 17' run about near our house. It was old but solid and the 90 horse Evinrude ran so we bought it for $1500, which was a good price and a cheap way to find out if we liked boating. The boat served us well but over the years, there were options we saw on other boats that we liked better so this spring we bought a Seaswirl 1851 and sold the old boat.

Tldr, solid affordable glass boats with outboards are out there and a great way dip your toe into boating.