I agree with getting something that you'll get the most use out of, and I'm sure that either choice your family will back you up even if that means breaking you b****s a bit before helping you out.
Went for a ride today with FiL, and here's the thing - within 1 hour, I was pretty much set to pass on the much better EX suspension and go with the Trail 53. These trails we rode today were very tight, and even my wide stance quad at 51" was close to clipping a few sapling on tight turns. What's made it worse is they slag the CF Moto brand and pretty much say I'm being a stubborn fool to buy one. This all is made much worse by the fact that my FiL towed a Uforce 800 out of the woods 2 weeks ago, and the owner gave my FiL several horror stories on reliability and bad dealer experience to pass along to me. I called the guy up to get his full story, not second hand, and he's been towed out on 3 of 4 rides, overheating each and every time. He also had it in the shop 4 of the past 12 months waiting on a thermal switch that kept failing.
And here's my reply to that - I've joined this forum to educate myself on the brand. I know that most of you guys have had no major issues like this, and I know what to do to make the SxS more reliable before I even get on the trails. I know what to look for, I know how to fix it (sorta), and I still have probably 9 months until I'm going to buy, which gives me even MORE time to research and make an informed buying decision. I'd say we are dealing with purely anecdotal evidence at this point, unless you can name a brand of SxS that has never been towed out of the woods.
The hard part now is to convince these two in laws that I'm a big boy and can take care of myself. I ask them to suggest an alternative to a CF Moto that doesn't rhyme with Brolaris and they can't do it. In fact, I slagged the CVT on my BiL's new Rzr 900 (due to having to wind it up to 3k rpm to even get it to move - I HATE that !!) and my FiL says he took it rather personally.