There have been a lot of good replies but you are going to get answers to this that are all over the place unless you narrow things down some!
Check out what the major players have to offer if you want a new rig.
TenTec
Yaesu
Icom
Kenwood
Elecraft
Alinco
A lot depends on what you want to spend. New? Used?
If you do want a rig more specifically tailored to you needs then Elecraft is a good way to go.
You are not going to defeat a price tag by not wanting ssb vhf etc. with most manufacturers. All that is just pretty much there these days in HF rigs.

That's pretty much it, whether grumpy or not!
A G5RV is designed primarily with 20 meters in mind. It just happens to load reasonably well on some other bands with a tuner.
It may work for you on other bands but only so well.
A 102ft doublet fed with window line and a wide range tuner is a better way to go. I used to use a G5RV for 40 and 80. It did ok but I replaced it with a doublet and find it is a better antenna especially on 80 and 30 meters.
Your results may vary.

It is not like CB has always had free "licensing".
It used to cost a few bucks for a 5 year CB license before they deregulated it.
Some actually got licenses and some didn't back then.
CB is a graveyard compared to back in the heydays. Probably not much money to be had from licensing fees and the administrative costs may not make it worthwhile.
The licensing fee cat has been out of the bag for a long time.
You probably couldn't catch the cat let alone get it back in the bag!
Sounds like rumor mill nonsense.
Take it to a CB forum. Let them fuss over it.

"I do have a single lever but I guess I will have to do some mods on it. It is so light that you can not use it without chasing the unit all over the table. I will find a way of adding some weight to it"
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Sometimes you can use automotive wheel balancing weights stuck to the bottom of the base (the underside). It depends on how much clearance the feet will allow.

quoted:
"There is nothing wrong with Iambic but I just prefer a keyer that would produce dit's and dah's with no auto complete.

If anyone has any schematics of such a keyer, I would be interested in seeing them. I would be willing to build one because I do not thing that a non-iambic keyer exist."
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It is not so much the keyer that is iambic, it is the key. The keyer is just doing what the key is telling it to do so to speak.
As mentioned a single lever key such as the Vibroplex "Vibrokeyer" is not an iambic key. There are several single lever keys out there at various prices you can find if you search for it. Begali has the Simplex Mono, Kent has one, there are many out there.
It is not that you want "no auto complete" as of course all dits and dahs auto complete with an electronic keyer. If you turn off the iambic mode in a keyer, and use an iambic or dual lever key, it is a pretty weird feeling to me. Just not right in my estimation.
Not sure how fast "fast" is to you with your current key but you might want to increase the spring tension a tad and/or increase the travel a tad so the levers are not quite so touchy. It can be a delicate balance to get things just right.
It is my understanding that the really high speed guys prefer single lever keys, not iambic.
For myself, at around 20-25 wpm it doesn't much matter either way.

Also "back in the day" at least for a while anyway, the solid state rigs did not have built in auto tuners so you needed a smaller manual tuner or build an add in tuned input circuit which I did with a Clipperton L I had back then. There was a kit you could get from Amp supply back then that I used. Also Dentron had a small outboard tuned input you could get. The Amp Supply kit was excellent.
A tuned input stage probably doesn't add much to the cost of an amp if engineered in to start with. Some amps like Heathkit SB-200 and SB-220 have had it for a long time before they were necessary.
To me I think it would be a sign of cheapness if a company came out with an amp these days without it.

JARL awards are rather expensive to apply for from what I remember in looking at them.
I am short 6 or so confirmed prefectures...on 6 meters.
Just short a couple otherwise.

Instead of asking here and not getting much of a reply about it, why not e-mail the DXCC desk and ask them since they process all of it anyway?? They are pretty quick to answer all questions I have found.
Not sure what the big deal is unless you are trying to get on Honor Roll with the submission or want to be sure to get in the DXCC Annual.

Ok, sri, frustration got the better of me. I have had my morning caffeine now. I understand what KY6R was saying in that he sees some very subtle differences that might indicate a change for the better at the very early stages of the new cycle, although it may be a while yet before significant changes occur. I am going to hope you are right but I think it is a ways out yet and it may be a less than average cycle. That may be what I think, but I hope I am wrong!;)

SF:70 A:1 K:2 SSN:0
How much change is that??? ZIPPO!
Seasonal variation is all.
One or two sunspots isn't going to change the solar flux much. SF of 67-69 is considered a bare minimum. When it gets to 125 or 150...if it does...then there is something to get excited about.
When it was closer to 200 in the early 80's I could listen to the Arabian Knights Net in the Persian gulf on 20 meters until local midnight or so. THAT was good propagation!!

BTW, I used a hacksaw blade and some parts from a beat up coffin key I found at a hamfest.
The Bunnell does show up on Ebay from time to time as do a few others. The Bunnell commands a pretty big price and a nice one can go for around $400-$500. Too rich for my blood although nothing would be cooler to have! Nothing more fun than plugging one in and asking a friend to try it out without telling him anything about it. Most hams don't know anything about them!!

I home brewed a cootie key about a year ago. Look me up on qrz.com for a picture of it in my bio. I am not very good at it as I really haven't used it a lot. How it works makes more sense to me than a bug does though! I am quite sure I could conquer it faster than I could a bug!

The Skillman "coffin key" is a bargain basement key. Just about everyone has marketed it with their name on the box, Calrad, Lafayette, and many others. It has a very heavy base so I would just put some stick on feet from a hardware store on the bottom and forget the suction cup feet. Don't ever lose any of the screws that hold the posts in! They are some weird in between metric thread and hard to find if you can find them at all. I couldn't so rethreaded them when I used the posts for a home made cootie key.

I had a Clipperton L for many years and the fan draws air OUT of the cabinet.

People do learn things like that sort of incorrectly and do just fine with it. I play guitar and once in a while have seen very good guitarists who are left handed playing a guitar strung the opposite of normal. Not just playing a right handed guitar upside down and restrung for a lefty like Jimi Hendrix, but played upside down AND still strung for a right handed player! Albert King played that way! Not so good for chords, but some simple ones or just double stops and mostly lead guitar can be played well. Just different! They learned it at an early age when they didn't know any different and just stuck with it. Different strokes....