You might want to look at different nibs though, to find the right amount of fineness you want.
[1] https://smile.amazon.com/Lamy-Safari-Fountain-Pen-Charcoal/d...
I had given up on fountain pens, as I always had problems with them clogging or leaking or just not being able to find refills. The Varsity has me using fountain pens again.
At about $2/per, there's no reason not to give them a try to see if you like them.
On the other hand, there's Platinum Preppys. I've been using one converted to an eyedropper much of the time for nearly a decade.
It's not an _Amazing_ pen, but it's got a nice solid brass body, the quality control is very consistent), it's a nice consistent writer, and they sell on Amazon for ~$12.
It's my usual recommendation for a "gateway" pen.
Fancier bodies is almost entirely a style thing - if you want a certain look, you can pay for it.
Nibs is a trickier thing. The "solid gold nib" thing isn't just marketing, there's actual advantages to it - mostly an opportunity to make the nib "softer" as it bends and flexes slightly as you write. This is very much a taste thing as well, but a much more difficult one to judge online! Different brands will generally have house "feels" - Lamy is a popular entry brand, and tends to make all their nibs super stiff, with almost no flex. Pilot or Sailors stlye tends to run softer. It's also worth mentioning that Japanese brands almost all run one size "finer", so if you're looking for a nib from a European company like Lamy or Pelican that's around the size of the pilot fine, order an extra fine.
All that said, possibly my favorite nib is the pilot vanishing point, which is ~$120. I don't think there's much in the < $100 range that's significantly better than the metropolitan. I'm also a big fan of Sailor and Visconti's fancier nibs, but that's up a considerable price band.
TWSBI Eco. People talk about how smooth it is but I found mine to be scratchy (which may not bother you because you like the Metro Fine and I found it scratchy as well). Be warned, you cannot fill it using a syringe.
Another option is the Jinhao X450, but use a Goulet nib instead of the Jinhao nib.
That being said, I love my Metropolitan.
Also, definitely do get the Medium nib. The Fine will feel scratchy. And keep in mind the Pilot Medium is almost the same as a Fine in the US/Europe.
Your bigger challenge is finding suitable paper to write on. It affects whether you get feathering or bleeding. To a smaller extent it that will affect smoothness. My favorite is the Figurare notebooks. Clairefontaine is also decent. In general, I don't see a correlation between price of notebook and fountain pen friendliness. I've bought decent cheap notebooks from Office Depot, but the exact same "model", in larger size paper, was crap.
Recent Parker fountain pens are pretty meh, in my opinion. Pelican has a good line, as do a number of Japanese makers (Pilot and Sailor are two). And here's my ad for my favorite current American maker, Franklin-Christoph (http://www.franklin-christoph.com/). If you have a pen show nearby, they'll probably have a big booth where you can try all of their pens, all of their nibs, and get one tuned by their tame nibmeister, Mike Masuyama. Not terribly expensive, either.
Then there's a world of Chinese and Indian manufacturers. Whoo. Let's not go there.
You will find very few good pens involving wood---it's not a great material---in fact, none, except for kits from new wood turners. Those are cheap brass pens with an expensive decorative wooden tube glued on.