Why not just go used? I picked up a road bike for a great deal in LA recently. I just checked LA craigslist, and there are over 400 results for "mountain bike" and > $1000.
Once you filter out pieces of junk, bikes that don't fit my specific height and aren't within an hour drive, that list unfortunately gets a lot smaller. I expect that filtering to become more relaxed as time goes on though. :)