Welcome. If I may, another way of asking this question would be “Experienced riders of STW who I know likely have several bikes at any one time and have p1ssed away £££££ over the years on various bits and bobs. If you had to have only one bike what would it be?”
Lot of guys on here have full suss XC, all mountain big hitters, singlespeeds (don’t go there, yet) and everything between. I’m guessing about 90% of folk if they only had one bike for everything would go for a nice comfortable hardatail that can take a decent 100-120mm fork. Light, fast and good on all but the really big stuff. Yes demo a few but I’d def have a good look at a steel On-One Inbred 456. Fantastic frames and they do great builds at great prices.
I’ve got a One-One Ti hardtail for year round fun and a Santa Cruz Blur for dry summer XC madness, cant see me changing either anytime soon. Took me years to get there though.
Oh and if you have the same bike in 2yrs its because you didnt get into it. Its just kind of like that…..