Playing against 1. e4

I meant Najdorf or Dragon in my previous post.

I agree with your post in general, but here you make it sound like Black chooses the type of game in the Sicilian!

Yes, on move five black has an important choice. But before that, white has already had the option of a entire array of anti-Sicilians, all different, and after move five, white can still decide the type of game!

Say you pick the Najdorf, white can still choose all the way from solid and positional (6.Be2) to ridiculously tactical (6.Bg5), and everything in between (6.Bc4, 6.Be3, 6.f4, 6.f3, 6.a4, they're all different). Same against the other lines, perhaps with the exception of the Sveshnikov.

The Sicilian is much easier to play for white than black, if both players know equal amounts of theory.

Yeah, perhaps I oversimplified it a bit.  Obviously there's the closed Sicilian, the 2. c3, and the variations where White plays Bb5 at some point in the first 3-4 moves, as well as the various gambits.  And, as you said, the choices of variations within, say, the najdorf, that White can choose.

I guess for the OP, considering the OP's expressly stated reservations regarding book lines, staying away from nearly all lines of the Sicilian is probably what the OP is going to do. LOL.

I would never recommend the sicilian to a beginner, I think its a terrible choice. I agree with gonnosuke that 1...e5 is a good/solid choice. If you simply refuse to play 1... e5 then I would recommend caro kann or french. When I was teaching my wife she used to play 1.... e5 but had horrible results against kings gambit and other gambits ( goring, scotch, danish ) and needed something else. I had her try pirc, caro kann and french and after spending some time/games with all 3 she settled on the french because she has better results and seems to understand/like the resulting positions more than with the oher two. But try as I might I cant get her to play the winawer !  She prefers the classical french where I prefer the winawer..... women !

I personally love the Pirc. But you shouldn't go into it without knowing the basic strategy and pitfalls.

Strategy: Get the king safe and then kill through the queenside. The reason why Pirc works is the great freedom you have to launch an all-out assault on the queenside. The relatively safe position of your king gives you that time.

Pitfalls: 1800+ players usually know this so they also know the basic defence against Pirc (which made it less popular over the years since the defence is quite solid). If white goes straight for the king and pushes the attack there black will have a tough time defending and might not have time to push it's own attack.

All in all the opening is solid if you know the theory. If you don't know what you're doing white will just run you over.

For a long time, I simply refused to play 1.e4 as white, or 1.e5 as black. I guess I thought it was too "beginnerish."

Well, after months of flailing around in the English Opening, Sicillian Dragon, French Defense, Alekhines Defense... I have decided to play 1. e4 and 1. e5. I have found these openings suit my style better (I like to attack). 1.e5 is more enjoyable to me than playing the French was. Plus, everyone says that you will never be a complete chess player without learning how to play the open games.

So all right Mr. Lopez, bring your theory riddled a** on over here, and lets rumble. 

Like i said, dont go for the other Sicilian lines, go for the kan. Usually u end up with a flexible, solid and weakness free position.

Kan is easy to learn

I would recomend the Sicilian or the French as both can be played as you become a better player (other reasons are stated in above posts). I would not recomend the pirc defense as you would need to study it A LOT as a single opening mistake can give you a poor game.