I disagree with people who say "Absolutely do not get anything without <this or that>" These things are not absolutes. They are balances of cost and features with an eye to the sorts of uses you have for the computer.
I much prefer SSD. I think it's the better choice. HOWEVER this choice comes at a cost in money and storage capacity. I have the money and I don't need a lot of storage capacity so I chose 256 GB SSD. However, one of Apple's selling points, which the folks complaining about the high price of its products fail to understand, is its commitment to quality. And if money is an object (which in your case apparently it is) an HDD will give you reliable storage at a lower cost. By getting the 265 GB SSD I got 1/4 the storage and paid an extra $200 plus tax. For me, that was a good choice.
But when someone says "Absolutely never get an HDD because they fail," well, the HDD in my old 9-year-old 5,1 iMac still works just fine and is likely to keep working for the next owner of that machine.
An SSD will be faster than an HDD, and might be faster for some kinds of disk usage than a Fusion drive, but again, only you can decide if that faster speed is worth the money. And a lot of people report that the Fusion drive is as fast or nearly as fast as the SSD, and provides a lot more storage for the price. It is for me. But that's me, and I can afford it. Consider your budget and how much storage you need.
