Which new 27 inch iMac should I purchase??

You could et the 1799 just fine with flash drive if possible. Flash drive is like "ram", it does not have mechanic parts and the computer can read everything super fast. When power it on it takes probably 15 seconds to be ready and applications runs way faster but really fast. With 8GB of ram you will be fine. That computer can last at least 4 years just fine. Just add more ram later on. By the way, flash drives are cooler, they do not make noise and use less electricity. Fusion drives are a mix of regular hard drive with flash memory, it will host the things you use the most in the fast flash part and the rest in the regular drive but for me is like buah.

 

It seems as though you're a "no-hassle" type of person that wants their system to just work.

I would recommend to absolutely go with the fusion drive and the size you choose along with retina screen. Everything else doesn't matter as much. Apple's ram prices are ridiculous, but if you don't want to upgrade it yourself (extraordinarily easy) go with 16.

 

Retina displays are brilliant, especially for text the hype is no lie.

Don't buy any modern mac without an SSD of some sort (fusion drive gives you 128GB of SSD with 1TB of HDD the OS puts what is most used and need most speed onto the SSD for you and manages it all to get the best speed you can) they make them much more speedy fluid and pleasant to use in evry situation. They are far more important than RAM in most use cases and the 27 inch can still be upgraded with RAM by the user at a much better price.

In short for your use case I would recommend any of them with a fusion drive, you won't notice the CPU GPU or even RAM amount at all but the SSD in the fusion drive will be a massive bonus.

 

Best guess october for skylake imacs at the moment with a 4K 21 inch in the offing as well.

 

They didn't update them in May, they stopped the non retina 27 inch and added a lower priced lower specced 27 inch retina to hit the previous price point. (No ssd and lesser CPU). They haven't changed since 2013 really.

However taking a look at your use case I can't imagine it'll make any difference to you at all, so wait if you wish or buy with confidence your choice.