I have a highland with an aftermarket baffle plate. It’s a great smoker, but it didn’t take long for me to realize I don’t want to wake up before dawn on Saturday and spend all day tending a fire just to put dinner on the table. I’ve also got a BGE, a homemade drum (3, actually), a cabinet pellet smoker and a Weber kettle. I’ve also recently owned but given or thrown away a Weber bullet, an electric and a very cheap offset. I built the drums for use in BBQ competitions (got one this weekend in Carthage, in fact), and also use them at home for practice, so they get the most use, and they are great smokers. But if I didn’t compete, the egg is the one I would use the most. If I were buying one today, though, Kamado Joe has probably surpassed Big Green Egg as the best kamado style cooker out there. They’ve just put way more thought into design versatility and air flow regulation. But, kamado prices have shot up in recent years, so if you don’t want to spend over $1000 on a cooker, I’d recommend a drum smoker. There are several guys on the competition circuit who build and sell great ones (couple of guys from Wise county sell well-designed drums at $500 and $650 price points...Short Rib Drum Smokers). Or if you are a DIYer, you can do what I did and buy a 55 gallon drum from North Texas Barrel Supply in Sulphur Springs and the parts you’ll need online from UDSparts.com and build one yourself for around $200-250.
edit: and if anybody out there chooses to build a drum smoker, please, for the love of god, pm me first. I’d love to keep you from making the 3 or 4 dozen mistakes I did.