Tim, I see from looking at a map of where your city in PA is, that you are far from the ocean coast. So I assume you are referring to fresh-water beach hunting? In any case, it is not entirely true that the XLT is a poor beach hunter. Yes there are better beach hunters, but the XLT, with correct settings, can be made to do so-so on the wet salt beach. As minerals progress, there will be other makes/models that might do better. And if you're talking dainty tiny tinsel thin chains, yes there are models that do better. But if you're someone who just gets out now and then to putt around (as evidenced by you've only used your XLT "4 times"), then you may find that a full-blown expensive bells & whistles machine, may also just end up sitting in the closet too.
For average conditions, the XLT can be made to work on the beach. For example, if you're talking conditions of coins in the 1" to 7" range, and moderate minerals, and you're not fanatical about tinsel thin gold chains (because there are drawbacks to machines too, that can find stuff that dainty y'know), then you would simply accomplish nothing by moving to another machine. Like: both machines would find a quarter, or a given ring, at 3" deep, on a normal beach. So what have you gained by spending $1000 for an excaliber? But if you're going to be hardcore, and go out in the rain and potentially dunking the machine underwater, and want to work back and forth through more varied conditions, and plan on actually md'ing a lot, then sure, spend more $$. And be aware that even the excaliber reaches a point where it fails in mineralized sand. Like the jet black cr*p in gully washes where creeks empty out into the ocean. In those extreme situations, you'd have to reach for a pulse machine.
So you'll need to be specific on where you intend to hunt, what your goals are (junk tolerance level, for example), etc... Try the beaches you have in mind first, with your XLT, and only THEN if it, for some reason, wasn't performing, then explore other options. If you were, for example, to be hunting with others, who were simply kicking your b*tt, then yes, you've got an area where perhaps another machine is better suited. Like, have them flag deep signals they hear (not loud shallow gimmees) and then you swing over them and see if you can bring in the same signals. If you can, then what's the need to switch?
