The purpose of a tripod is to support the weight of the camera gear you will use on it, and hold up for years of use. I have found the Vivitar aluminum with the channel lock legs to do just that. At least the old ones did. I don't know if the newer "digital" ones are as good or not. They also had two models where the center column could be moved down at several angles, until at least it could be horizontal. That wasn't something I used often, but there were times that simplified things a whole lot. One model had channel lock legs and the other had round legs that were adjusted by twisting them.
Those two models are hard to find these days, but non-adjustable column types are all over ebay.