Anthony,
In my opinion, there has been no better time than now to get into O Scale no matter whether you choose Proto48 or not. And here is why I think or hold this opinion. The hobby of model railroading in general could be on the verge of a renaissance in the next 2 years. Due to the fact that we know availability in O Scale quality kits and models is lacking, but the rise of the tools available for creating the models and component parts with everything from laser cut objects to 3D Printing will help both experience models, beginners or even persons like yourself considering a change of gauges. The price of the hardware like a printer has been drastically reduced and most all the software tools are free open source. The time to learn how to use these tools is also reduced compared to 5 or 10 years ago because most of the time you can pull a YouTube video and to see how to do something without having to take a comprehensive course. The other advantage we have today is the ability to collaborate on-line with other modelers to get things done. I am a heavy user of Zoom Video Conferencing for such things which by the way also makes it easier for folks that want to volunteer a little time to work putting on a convention.
The kit of the future will be an electronic model railroad kit that comes on a thumb drive or a download zip or tar file. Imagine if you can, 6 Western Maryland modelers that want to produce a WM hopper car in O Scale from scratch. All 6 share in the work and sketch up the components in FreeCAD. Within a week they have the first rough draft ready to print and evaluate including all the details required for the car. They make their work open source to share with the modelers of all scales who can then modify for improvements or tailor it for another road. Regardless of the gauge you happen to be in you can scale the WM model up or down in size. For example, a G Scale set of files can be sliced down to O Scale by approximately 71%. And oh by the way, you don't have time to sketch the parts, I took an iPhone photo of some etched brass brake rigging parts, imported the photo into Inkscape to generate the svg for the FreeCAD, extruded the parts and printed them. The process went very quickly so I could get back to the bench and use those parts on a refurbished piece.
https://www.prusaprinters.org/...-rail-fec-hopper-car
Regarding cost, I have a different thought process about that topic. Even if you spend a large sum on a ready to run brass import, if you have any sticker shock at all most likely because of limited disposable income perhaps or your preference is to purchase many other things for the layout within your budget, your event horizon or thinking has to be long term. For many of us in the hobby once you are in, you are a lifer for sure. How many years will you keep and cherish that model? If you were a railroad company, standard accounting procedures would have you depreciate the equipment. But as it so happens, precision built models last and appreciate over a lifetime. If you spend $1500 today and you have that model in your collection on the layout for 35 years, you could say amortization was $42/$43 per year of enjoyment. On the other hand you can find rather nice 1970's vintage O Scale engines at a reasonable price and upgrade it to Power On Board with sound, the whole works.
Your options are many so I would not hesitate to get into the O Scale 2 rail. Your creativity will not be limited.
Cheers!
John Wubbel
