Hi grandeau,
I was in the exact same position as you a few weeks ago and just purchased the Inspire M2 home gym. It's about 79 inches at the tallest point and is basically everything I wanted in a home gym - low height (my basement is 82" in it's finished state), and a ton of exercises. As a bonus, it's user friendly enough for my wife not to be intimidated (she's never worked out before). I looked long and hard, and basically this is the only weight stack home gym that's low enough to fit. I checked out Hoist Fitness stuff, and while comparable to Inspire (maybe even a little better), it was just too high to fit in my basement.
We've been using it for a few days now and I have nothing but good things to say about this system. It's extremely smooth, and the high/mid/low pulleys give you lots of options for functional training type exercises. I also bought a couple of extra attachments - a "D" handle for one arm curls, and a tricep rope. I'm going to also eventually buy the ab bar that Inspire makes for their home gym. I tried it out at the store and it was pretty awesome.
The only caveat is that it's about double what you're stated price range is. I'm not sure how much cheaper it is in the US (I'm in Ontario Canada), but I ended up paying about $2000 CAD for it.
I'll eventually add a bench and some dumbbells for some variety but otherwise, I think I'm set for a while.
