There are alot of very experienced technical divers, dive masters, and instructors on this board that offer awesome advice. And if you search you'll see that the common answer is that there is no one recommendation and you should try many before you actually invest in one, or you will hear that you should go ahead and invest in a BP/W and for good reason. ANd both of the answers are true.
But sometimes I kinda think that they forgot how overwhelming it can be when your first jump into the sport. You don't know what brands are the good brands, which ones are not, and which ones are just overpriced brand names. Or at least thats the situation I found myself in. Being new to diving, I've vested hours of online product research and bought every magazine on the shelf. And came to the conclusion that you really can't go by a review of a bias reviewer, which generally is all of them. And just to note, I now own two different BC's, neither of which I really like. And the trial an error approach gets expensive real fast.
As you'll find there are typicall three common marketed type of BCD's. There are the most common jacket style, the ever growing more common back inflate style, and the technical common back plate with wing.
If your looking for a jacket style all the brands you mentioned offer a decent product. But as they are so common, they are also commonly available used, which I highly recommend over new. The reason being is if your new, more than likely you will wanna change what you have with experience. And jacket BC's are a whole lot cheaper used than new. One can easily spend $500 on a new jacket BC, which after the next 5 or 10 dives you'll start to dislike. But the same exact BC's in excellent condition are all over the place for less than half that price, being sold by the person who already figured out they wanted something else. Ebay, craigslist, and local newspaper adds, etc. Heck even ask your local dive shop if they have any used gear. My whole two sets of oceanic BC's, scubapro regs, oceanic integrated computers, fins, etc, I bought off craigslist for $500. And it wasn't bottom line equiptment either, nor was is worn out or in bad shape.
Personally I'm kinda leaning to back inflate BC's over jacket style, some of the ones I'm looking at are the Mares Icon, Mares Pegasus, Scubapro Knighthawk, and Cressi Backjack. There really isn't any magic trick or special reson one is better than the other. The bells and whistles are about the same, maybe a few minor features but nothing significant. And honestly I'm not even sure if I'll like the one I get. When it comes to the Jacket style I favor the Cressi or the Mares models. Though many people think highly of them, I disliked my experiences with the scubapro classic or really any scubapro jacket type BC I used. I have yet to really be impressed by zeagle BC's, but there are alot of avid fans of the Ranger.
The last piece of advice I can give you, is get hands on. Go to your local dive shops and put your hands on the product, try it on, inflate it, ask to wear it with a tank, see if you really like it. Even if you stop by one on the way home from work, just to look at the thing in real life. Do so before you buy it online, if your planning on doing so.
