Welcome to the forum!
A light nice
cheap dinghy I saw was a stich and glue dighy made from a two
sheets of
plywood. It was amazingly stable and carried passengers and luggage quite well. You cut the
plywood and stich it together then cover with glass and resin. I know of nothing cheaper. Here is one such place to get free plans:
Free boat plans from Bateau If you
google you can find other desgns.
Some of the cheaper air floor digny's are more you pay for what you get and good inflatables are not
cheap and row very poorly. I've seen them with platic or
aluminum slats as you have seen the
wood slats suck.
Therre are folks that love the Portaboat that folds flat and you store on the
lifelines.
High quality comes with cost. The best hard dignhy I ever saw was a Trinka 8 - they row like a dream. Inflateables come in all
price ranges with the Hypalon
RIB being the fastest and heaviest. While you may tow it most of the time there are times when you want to strap it to the
deck so a system to
lift it and deploy it is needed.