I agree with everything said, above, but thought I'd put my own slant on it.
I've flown more different types of flying machines than most - and every single one was great fun. Microlights, gliders, motorgliders, light aeroplanes, fighters, helicopters - loved them all. But the cost isn't constant, so stick within your means. If you can get twice the flying by going for something cheaper, forget the snob value and do it: particularly if your budget is limited.
Secondly, you are going for hobby flying. I have two hobbies: flying and Jiu Jitsu, both of which I'm reputed to have some skill at. Both of them I enjoyed learning, the latter I teach (and the former people seem to regularly come to me for advice for some strange reason, although I'm not formally an instructor). Yet both, I regularly go and spend time with teachers of all sorts, learning more, improving myself, developing skills. Learning is FUN, as well as regularly frustrating - it also never stops until you do. So, my advice would be not to get hung up on a specific objective - treat learning to fly as your hobby, budget to do it at a rate and in an environment that you can manage, and have FUN.
Do it that way, and you'll probably learn faster anyway - as well as enjoying yourself more. When you get to a licence (of whatever form) you'll be less supervised, but still having fun, and still learning.
Incidentally, I've been flying for 17 years, and practicing Jiu Jitsu for 18 - and have firmly reached the conclusion that I'll never master either. This worries me - because it means that my time to practice both is limited and I wish it wasn't. But not that much.
G
Edited to say, I have a student at the moment - in my Jiu Jitsu club. He is a yellow belt, agonising over the fact that his inability to perform a particular technique (forward rolling Ukemi for those in the know) is stopping him making orange belt - sounding not entirely unlike mad_bear!. In the meantime, he's one of my best students - everything else he's doing is developing brilliantly, and by the time he's cracked that he'll probably leapfrog orange and make green belt! Anybody see anything wrong with that? I don't, he's just an individual, and thus on an individual learning curve.