Yeah you could get a mg100hdfx head for about 2 hundred and a cheap behringer cab with it if you just wanted a halfstack.

The mg's are really good amps, but pods > them.

Have you looked into a peavey 5150, I saw a band recently and both guitarists used them and one used a pod XT with his and it sounded great!

I dont realy use the distortion on mine just use it to run my effects unit through (digi tech gnx3). Vales are great for real warm tones but most of the time i want cold, cold, cold synthetic sounds, though my old Digitech RP7 unit is valve powered you could get some real creamy distortions out of it....i cant belive i just used the word creamy to describe a sound

I've got a solid state Laney combo, 120 watts, it's pretty old though, so I run my POD into it for a good distortion sound.

Personally, I'd not go for Mesa Boogie's. Check out the Marshall DSL/TSL models, the Peavey 5150, or the Laney model that Opeth use (the model escapes me).

Laney. Peter from Opeth use the VH100R which you might be able to snatch second-hand for about £400 (new it's gone up to about £600). Massively underrated amp. 5150s are relatively hard to get hold of over here and don't really have a clean channel so I wouldn't wholeheartedly recommend them (I also find them a bit 'fizzy'). If the money is tight, you could always go for a Laney GH series (GH50L or GH100L, which Mikael from Opeth uses) which are single channel and are hence much cheaper - I got a second-hand GH50L and matching 240W 4x12 for £300 and it sounds like the bollox. A second-hand DSL or TSL could be a route to go down as well.

Avoid getting a Marshall MG or AVT series amp - they simply will not hold up in a live situation. Avoid solid state stuff altogether if you can, even for the most extreme metal - valves are the only way to go for a decent tone.