Regarding low-cost solutions, I admit I am fairly ignorant as to what exactly is available, both from a quality and cost perspective.

That said, when I hear low-cost tent, this is what pops into mind: Escort 3 Person Dome Tent

This is a design I've never trusted, at a minimum I've always insisted on full coverage of the inner tent by the fly (comes from growing up on the Wet Coast I guess ) and I haven't really seen any low-cost tent that offered this. Granted, as mentioned, this can be overcome by setting up the tent in combination with a tarp, but that seems to be getting back to a setup which may work for car camping but I imagine it would be a royal pain if backpacking it. I could be wrong on that I guess, but that's my impression.

Maybe there are better designs out there for the $50 range, but as I said, I am not aware of them.

When exploring the low-cost route earlier (before I talking myself into my new budget ) I was considering 2 options.

The first was to go down the used route. The main avenues I found for this were MEC's Online Gear Swap and their semi-annual Gear Swap at their physical location (think outdoor gear swap meet; both MEC selling rentals, returns, etc. and individuals selling from their own tables). The University of Calgary's Outdoor Centre also sells off its rental gear at various points in the year.

Lastly, if going with a lower budget, but still new gear, I don't think I would go too wrong with the MEC Camper 2 ($149). It meets most of my criteria for about half the cost of the ones I am considering now.