Celestron and Orion are now owned by the same Chinese private equity group and their scopes are identical.
Quality-wise the three are about the same. Meade used to be considered more "professional" but in reallity the Chinese-made scopes (by Synta in Souzhou) are just as good as the ones made by Meade in Mexico (Meade doesn't make any scopes in the US anymore),
Orion's customer service is very good. Meade's customer service has slipped a lot since the company run into financial problems few years ago. If the economy continues bad, I would not be surprized to see Meade quickly head the way of the dinosaurs, On the other hand, the Chinese investment group behind Orion and Celestron is much more likely to survive. This could be important for warranty service.
Finally, all three are essentially entry-level scopes.
Have you actually used an 11" SCT? It's a big and heavy scope. Are you going to install it in a permanent observatory? Otherwise, you might be better of with a smaller, more portable scope in the same price-range, but one of significantly better quality. I have both Orion and Celestron scopes, and used to have a Meade, and they are OK. But there is a big quality gap between these brands and a Takahashi, a TeleVue or a Japanese-made Vixen (not one of the cheaper Vixen that are made in China).
