Hey man I got 2 cents, I just bought an Ibanez EW series with the Koa wood body about 3 months ago and Ive been following the list of tutorials on Chris's page and its great. My guitar was only about 550 (pricetag, we talked them down to 400 and a pair of strings :) ) but she plays extremely well, very light and sweet but with a good action, plus it has a built in amp and tuner (I highly recommend the tuner, as nylon strings seem to like to get out of tune a half step or so every few days). I dont really think you need to have a hand made thousand dollar plus guitar to get one youll wanna keep, just take a day and try them all out (which shouldnt be alot if your buying at guitar center, usually just that one wall to the right of the acoustics)

Also, I would take some time to figure out which style you wanna pursue as far as flamenco versus classical so you can pick the right guitar, when I first began my search I wanted a flamenco too, but eventually settled on a straight classical (albeit with a slightly thinner body and lower action as that guitar comes)

best of luck