In my experience, the prusa mk3s+ has been top notch so far.
Assembling the kit instead of buying pre-built is the way. This way you learn a lot about the machine itself, but it's a generally low-bullshit machine.

Ender 5 pro been kicking right along for like 4 years.

I started with and ended 3 pro. It was new, no frills, basic printer. I learned a lot in assembly, calibration, and my first prints. I quickly learned that bed levelling was a chore I could do without and added a cr touch. Now that I've done hundreds of prints, it's time for a step up, and I just received the Bambulab X-1 Carbon. A major leap forward in terms of printing to tinkering ratio. The point is, you are on the right track. Get something you can calibrate and tinker with and upgrade to increase your knowledge. You will know when you are ready for something more automatic.

Have you looked at the voron machines? They come in either a self-sourced or kit form and you build it from the ground up.

The sibor or fystec V0.2 kits often can go on sale for less than 400 on Ali-express.

The best part about these builds is the community and the dedication to making fantastic printers to at you can build and learn with.

Unfortunately there is a chance of getting a lemon no matter what model you buy, that's just the nature of manufacturing. Since you're already familiar with the anycubic, is there a reason not to try again (I don't know if it falls within your price range or not)?

If you just want to start from scratch with a model that is highly upgradeable, I'm a satisfied owner of one of the original Ender 3 Pro models, and I have printed a number of upgrades including a full direct-drive head, so there's a lot of room to grow. Personally I am a fan of any model that you have to assemble yourself because you learn so much just from the process of squaring up the frame and seeing how everything goes together. The biggest complaint anyone has about these printers is the manual bed leveling, which is an art form of its own, but the process is actually pretty straightforward once you understand what each step is for (and don't let anyone tell you that the paper method is the end of it -- that's only enough to barely get you started so you don't damage the machine while actually leveling the bed), and the bed can stay level for a year or more with only minor tweaks. Yeah the Ender printers aren't in a pretty package, and they don't do everything automatically for you, but there's a huge community to help troubleshoot almost every problem and they will produce very clean and consistent prints.

I can recommend against enders. I have two friends with them, and one myself. Between the 3 of us none of them are currently working, and its been like this since i found out all 3 of us had 3d printers. Keeping them working is like pulling teeth.

I have the newish Elegoo Neptune Pro 4 and have had it running damn near daily for months now. I'm not very versed in 3D printing, but this has been a damn near perfect set it and forget it printer I've had out of three. The only real tinkering I've had to do is change some of the custom cura settings. Checkout the YouTube rabbit hole on it for a somewhat easy experience.

I really like my Sovol SV06+. Had the elegoo Neptune 4 before but send it back cuz i had a lot of issues with it.