I read that S&W corrected the trigger problem a few years ago.
Do you still have to take off the sights to clean them up? Have they changed the geometry?
Try an M&P trigger, then try the Sig 320 trigger. The answer will be immediately obvious either way.
I can shoot my block 17, right on target. If I switch to the M&P right away, I can’t hit the wall. (well, not THAT bad. But the trigger is certainly a tougher pull.)
“I read that S&W corrected the trigger problem a few years ago.”
All the “safe action” style “autoloading” (formal nomenclature = semi-automatic; “self-loading” is a common synonym but less popular than previously) handguns come from the factory with what a target shooter might denigrate as poor trigger pull: long travel, rough/gritty feel, uncrisp sear release, lengthy overtravel.
They can be improved; Glock is the leader, as there are more aftermarket parts sellers out there, making items that help. The others are catching up. But none of them can ever approach the single-action pull that can be developed for guns like Colt’s O Frame (US M1911 style), or various DA/SA guns like SIG or Beretta.
Ho-hum trigger action can be compensated for, by lots of practice. It’s even possible to do quite well with the DA pull on a revolver, by practicing.
Handling qualities are irreducibly subjective; your own hands are yours alone, and the best-feeling sidearm - to you - can be judged only through handling as many different ones as you can, and shooting as many as you can.
Unfortunately, unless you have access to a commercial range that rents handguns, or you have friends/acquaintances who own numerous handguns, and permit you to fiddle with theirs, you may have to live with little direct experience before buying.
Caliber choices are a series of unhappy tradeoffs. Bear in mind that few handgun cartridges are all that effective, unless one fires 357 Magnum or better.
Cartridges for autoloading guns are quite rigid when it comes to permissible size, bullet configuration, and performance parameters: they have to stay inside rather narrow limits if the gun is to extract, eject, and feed the next round reliably.
40 S&W may be the best compromise between bullet size, energy, gun size and controllability (hence the huge move by law enforcement agencies in its direction, in the 1980s when revolvers were abandoned). But firing one is less than pleasant: recoil and blast are significant. Additionally, reloading for it is less forgiving than the older rounds.
357 SIG and 10mm Auto are the only autoloading cartridges to deliver performance anywhere close to that obtainable from a revolver. But they are more costly, and the 10mm suffers from spotty availability. The FBI was in the process of adopting the 10mm in a special reduced-power loading when the 40 S&W was introduced. 357 SIG has been adopted by several major law enforcement agencies, but has since seen a decline. Performance and effective range are excellent, but accuracy is not great, and stories have circulated, about short service life and frequent parts failure in guns chambered for it.
9mm and 45 are the only other feasible choices. Both were introduced just over 100 years ago, have benefited from extensive development by military establishments, pose few surprises, and are relatively straightforward for reloading.
9mm NATO (adopted by Imperial Germany in 1904; aka 9mm Parabellum, 9x19mm, 9mm Luger) has been the world standard since before 1920, mostly because it is almost the only cartridge used in submachine guns. US availability is wide, and cost is not as bad.
45 Auto (adopted by the United States War Dept in 1911; aka 45 ACP (Auto Colt Pistol) changed in small ways from a round introduced by Colt in 1905) is the only other choice, but it is little used outside the US or Central/South America. Its reputation for effectiveness is very high, but little hard data supports that. In MIL STD loadings, 9mm outperforms 45 ACP in kinetic energy and effective range. A 9mm gun of size comparable to any given 45 ACP will hold twice as many rounds; for a comparable number of rounds, the 9mm gun can be made much flatter and more easily concealable.
Unless you are willing to train with regularity, a revolver may be a better choice.
The most popular caliber by far is 357 Magnum. Cost is slightly better than others, and availability universal in the United States. A 357 fires 38 Special with no alteration, and the cost and availability of 38 Special cartridges still beat every other choice, revolver or autoloader.
Revolver loading, unloading, and use are much simpler, ammunition choice is much wider, and its reliability is still about 100 times better than an autoloader.
The downsides:
(1) Limited ammunition capacity. Guns of manageable size and weight are limited to six or even five rounds; this has been offset in the past decade, a little, by introduction of seven-shot or even eight-shot cylinders for guns of no greater dimension, and use of lightweight alloys.
(2) Severity of malfunctions. A stoppage in an autoloader can usually be corrected in short order by the shooter (though mastering the various drills for clearing is an absolute necessity and demands very disciplined training); any stoppage in a revolver, save a total failure to ignite, can be extremely serious and often requires the services of an experienced pistolsmith. Be prepared to spend lots of time and money.
Please recall that at the end of the day, even the most powerful handgun is no more than a marginal piece of ordnance hardware. The late Mel Tappan wrote that its chief advantage - portability - causes it to be there when nothing else is. There’s a reason that the military sets the effective range of handguns at 20m, even after decades of development and technological advances. The smallest, lightest, mildest rifle still provides range and effectiveness many times that of a handgun. Plus, rifles are easier to learn; developing skill with a handgun requires more time and effort, and abilities fall off quicker unless refreshed at shorter intervals.