So, what do I get for the extra $310 dollars? Another digit in a ginned up frequency count? No decoding? Pretty simple choice...
If decoding is a must the you won't get anything below about $1500.
Apart from a hacked DS1054Z that is.
What Wolfy's great discovery is that the DS1054Z (and many other 'scopes) does is make calculations based on screen pixels. The DS1054Z has 800 pixels horizontally, minus the menus at the sides. Calculating a very exact frequency of 1kHz using that information obviously isn't very precise.
His life's ambition (it seems) is to find out all the ways working with on-screen information will make readings inaccurate.
Fortunately the DS0154Z (and many other 'scopes) have separate dedicated hardware for counting frequencies and most of the other readings don't really matter because people naturally zoom in on the area of interest and therefore get more pixels for measuring things like rise/fall times.
Getting back on topic: You're finding out that a
hacked DS1054Z beats most other scopes in your target price range. You probably have to spend $1200+ to get something significantly better in terms of features. Serial decoding in particular is expensive.
Serial decoding is also done better by dedicated logic analyzers, eg saleae.