Erm what's the version i need to get?

[shadowlogic]

Hey guys,straight to the point here. I'm considering buying a SGN3 which version would be the absolute best to come by? Is there any that come pre-unlocked(being the bootloader). I'm only posting here as some pre-purchase research I ran into a hiccup with the galaxy note 2. I purchased one while back being Koxx locked (VZW) and it's literally bullet proof. There was no way to install a custom recovery or run awesome stuff like Cyanogenmod. Basically what I'm asking here is is there a way for me to avoid buyers remorse? Lol.