Well I eventually talked the shop into letting me get the AFX MK0217 out of the box and having a try of it before buying, It seemed really solid, with some decent keys (relative to the cheap Logitec keyboard I had before) and generally pretty good. I have it now, and am again pretty impressed with it. The keys aren't too loud (aside from the really tinny sounding space bar), feel really solid, RGB looks fairly impressive, which was not vital at all, but my daughters like it (I secretly love it too).
I have little to no experience with a more premium keyboard, but what I can say is that it's a hefty step up from what I had been using.