I am glad to hear you say the J-185 could be a good bet - I have heard that the smaller jumbo bodies in Gibson can be real duds and you're lucky to find a good one. The J-185 has been on the market (in L.A.) for months on Reverb at $1750.
With most models of a particular guitar, you will usually have far more mediocre examples as opposed to stellar ones or duds. It's simply a bell curve scenario. The trick is to find the really good ones!
Interestingly, in 2001 I played a brand new J-185 that pretty well knocked my socks off. It was on sale, and when I went back to buy it, the sale was over & they wouldn't honor the lower price. Instead, I ended up with a new maple J-100xtra made in 2000, which I still have today. Love the sound of it, but still, that J-185 had left an imprint.
Fast forward to 2013 - it took me that long to land my J-185. This one was made in 2012, and I absolutely love it. The complaint I've heard about mini maple jumbos is that they often don't pump enough bass. Well, that was not an issue with the one I played in 2001, and it's not at all an issue with this one. In the world of guitars, generalizations can often be rendered meaningless by the next example you pick up!