I hate skis with plates for bindings. Such a horrible idea and so many companies are moving away from that idea. The only reason you ever really want a plate is on a slalom ski... and even that is questionable these days. a plated binding is significantly heavier than a mounted binding. That being said, if you broke the ski, you can put the bindings on something else, if you break a binding you can get a new one. So he doesn't want binding included.
I like someone's previous post about the Lord. I really like that ski. Armada tst is a great all mountain that handles the powder but carves like a champ. I wouldn't put AT bindings on it, but I'd use it as a one quiver ski. That being said, if he just wants to charge, if you can find some last year's kestles, or stoklis.... storm rider = heaven. Fischer watea is also a pretty decent ski for the price. I'd go 94 or 98 on that one. Then if you can figure out what the male equivalent of the K2 payback... it's for sure their most versatile in their bc series. Then there is the K2 obSethed... Yeah, those are amazing.
