Bugger me! 
...the average time to first solo now ...is about 15-20 hours...
Another good reason to leave the capital cities and learn to fly in the bush. Very few of my students take more than 12 hours to solo with many of them taking less than 10 hours. ALL the students under 30 fall into this second group.
If the "tailwheel only" school is the one in Camden, they have an excellent reputation. That said, 200 hours is a lot of flying training and I am sure you could put a TW endorsement in there somewhere.
My personal bias is towards tailwheels over nosewheels
