What kind of stand mixed should I buy? Tilt head, bowl lift?

KitchenAid bowl lift for the kinds of things you want to make. That's what I have. My daughter has a tilt-head and it is just not powerful enough to easily handle heavier doughs.

I loved my tilt-head until it walked off the counter (twice!) because of a heavy bread dough. (I didn't overload it -- I swear!) A couple of the plastic bits broke, but the mixer still worked just fine. The newer, wider lift-bowl is much better than the older model. I don't scrape my knuckles poking around at a dough or batter if I'm too lazy to lower the bowl and the wider bowl is also really helpful when adding liquids with the machine running. As another poster said, you can't really go wrong with either version. I would stick with the lift-head if I didn't have counter space on which to permanently park the lift-bowl mixer.

This question comes up a lot, most recently here

https://food52.com/hotline/26303-which-kitchen-aid-stand-mixer-is-better-tilt-head-or-bowl-lift

It comes down to your personal feelings on the trade offs--power vs. cost and weight.

The tilt head is more convenient, but bowl lift is bigger and more powerful. It takes up more room on the counter and more expensive, but if power and ability to make larger amounts are priority, bowl lift is the way to go.

Kitchenaids are great. A friend of mine bought a Breville and loves it. It's fun to go to Amazon and read reviews of the different models.

I've only ever had a bowl-lift model, but I like it very much. If you buy a Kitchen Aid, you shouldn't ever need another one. Mine is 26 years old.