There are some other questions you have to answer.

Will your sailing be in Naples, FL? If that is like most of west Florida, you'll be in shallow water. If you want the true beach cat life you will be hauling out on any good looking sandy islet you see. This pretty much wipes out daggerboard boats except maybe a Hobie 18 if you just HAD to have boards. Now you're limited to boardless or swing boards (centerboards). If you want to race in little circles (buoys) and you have deeper water you can go F16 but for a beach rat, no way. You'll gut it and cry out those 96 tears. You have to decide who you are and what kind of sailing life you want to lead. The vocal people on this board seem to be mostly racers, the other 95% of us rarely race and have just as much fun. Who are you?

What's your budget and what's your take on older boats? Most true beach cats will be 10-30 years old. If you can live with that and you're looking for a shallow water boat, west Florida is like a smorgasbord of choices. If you must have new (why?) I guess the H16 and N500 are about all that's left in the US market for new boats. Maybe the Getaway but it's heavy and slow. How about an older Prindle 16 or 18? Killer beach boats, on par with H16 speeds (or better). How about a GCat, either 5.7 or 5.0? Very quick in skilled hands and has a forward tramp for very cool crowd control. Tough as nails, massive hull flyer, and Hans is in your neighborhood. On the other hand, it's hard to beat a SuperCat 17 for speed and strength in the true beach cat category. An SC17 would be easy to find, affordable, and fast in skilled hands (slow if you're a hack). Any Mystere would be good as the 5.5 and 6.0 have swing boards and are much faster that a H16. There's a large Mystere fleet in Dunedin, perhaps the boat of choice in that vibrant, 365-day, shallow water fleet. I had a boardless Mystere 5.0XL that I dearly loved. I only parted with it to get a Mystere 5.5 which turned out to be a bit too heavy of a beach horse for my liking. I tried a Dart 18 (popular and effective skeg boat) but it was not for me, just wrong. Same with a Prindle 18-2 (swing boards). Had one and sold it, just not for me. I went BACK to a 16 foot boat in a Nacra 5.0. It's tough as nails, the rudders are still stupid (they all are), it comes with all the strings and diamond wires you might want, the boat and mast are light, and it's easy to right solo (for me at 185 lbs, 58 years old). It takes a spinnaker quite well and you can get parts. Used F16 sails fit it nearly perfectly if you want to upgrade to a squaretop, blade jib, and spin. The new N500 has all that but will cost a lot of money and you will cry when some oyster bed rips it's guts open. With an older boat you'll just reglass and move on.

Maybe it depends on how old you are. When you're young many people feel that their car defines them. Some might think that it's the same with a boat, thinking that with a new boat you'll look cool or get you laid more. If so, then spend the dough and go new. If you're older and know that it's a charming smile that get's you laid, then save a lot of money and buy a 10 year old beachcat, sail it hard and have big fun (and a charming smile). You'd have trouble spending more than 4 grand on any of the boats I mentioned. I've never spent half that. It's not about what you spend, it's about what you keep for parts and beer.

The BIGGEST consideration is to sail what the other folks near you sail. If you have a fleet of Sunfish near you, owning a Hobie 20 would leave you out of the fun, an orphan. Much faster, but an orphan. If everyone races buoys and F16s, a Getaway would leave you out yet again. Find your locale, find who they are and what they sail, and buy a boat in the upper 40% of the speed rating of the group. You'll keep up, you can drink their beer, and guaranteed, you'll have fun.

I could be wrong. I often am.