Hi Tim,
In the past I've owned all three of the major brands of inboard/outboards, OMC,Mercruiser and Volvo Penta. They were all tons of trouble. I'd go with a salt water series outboard like the Evinrude E-tec I have on my Grady White or one of the 4 strokes by Suzuki or Yamaha.
When the outboards go kaput (as they all do after many years of service)you simply hang a new one on the stern With an I/O you have to pay someone to remove and reinstall an engine. Changing the oil in an I/O is a pain in the wazoo, they take up a lot of space in the cockpit and the power to weight ratio usually sucks.If you already have an I/O that needs repowering, you could easily have an outboard bracket put on your boat.
JMO,
Harry
