I have flown the Hog Bipe and its a wonderful sports biplane for relaxed "Sunday flying" with some aerobatics thrown in. The nose section can easily be modified by mounting the engine with the cylinder in the horizontal or 8 o'clock position and adding a balsa/ply cowl.
If aerobatics is your thing you should consider the Ultimate. I have no experience with the Goldberg one, but have built one some years ago from plans by David Boddington. It was an extremely nice aircraft that excelled in all things knife edge.
If I remember correctly the Goldberg Ultimate first appearead as a construction article in RCM many years ago and from what I remember it seemed to be a straightforward build with a sligtly lighter structure than the 'Boddo' Ultimate.

Edit: I noticed you live in the U.K. Have you considered the [link=http://www.chrisfoss.co.uk/Wots-wot.htm]Chriss Foss Wots-Wot[/link]? It should be a straightforward build and from what I have seen (I have not flown it myself) it flies very nicely.