If you are just a casual skier who mostly is a blue/green skier, you should go to a ski area in the summer and buy some used demo skis. You can get some very high quality skis and bindings for about half price over the summer. You just need a good intermediate parabolic ski.
If you are more of an aggressive skier and are looking to do more advanced stuff, you should rent demo skis next time out at a ski shop that will let you swap out as much as you want. You will want to experiment a lot with length and stiffness to find what works best for you. If money is not an issue, you may want to look at buying a good all mountain ski and a pair of good powder skis if you get to ski in places like CO that get real powder.
Either way, you will want to spend good money on boots. Boots can make a huge difference even for blue/green skiers. The standard rental boots are crap compared to what you can get for a few hundred. Be sure to work with a good boot fitter.
If you can't shop without recs, I would say that Blizzard is a good all mountain ski for more of a blue/black skier. They chatter a bit if you are a speedster, but cut moguls nicely and are decent off piste. Blizzard has a number of different lines with varying levels of flex that you should try out if you can do demo rental. Vokl is the best expert ski. You have to have very strong and crisp turns or else they will feel like lead. Definitely need to try these out before buying. Salomon, Rossignol and Head make good entry level parabolic skis. If you are not picky about feel and are a blue/green guy, just get a good deal on any of these and you will be set.