Ted's waiting time is really long too. I'm only getting one for the shop in 2020 [emoji38] Tom's guitars start at 6500 as well so that might be tough for OP's budget. He also tells me he hasn't built a single base price guitar since his new pricing.
Some builders in the 5K range who might be willing to do a segmented rosette could be John Datlen and Keisuke Nishi (Keystone). Builders in your price range who might need some persuading to go out of their signature looks would be Jayson Bowerman and T. Drew Heinonen. If any of these guys interest you, we could have a chat!
