I think you made the right choice with excalibur too, I have a phoenix and love it, in fact you'd be hard pressed to get me to trade it for any other crossbow
it was my wife who talked me into getting it actually, I was undecided between the phoenix and vixen and she made my mind up for me, and I'm gladshe did now...



the only problem I'd see is that MAY come up is thatmost people who arent very knowledgeable about crossbows tend to see the compound style as superior, a recurve is kind of looked at down on as not being as good when in fact the recurve is superior in alot of ways(if not most ways), if he falls into that catagory you may have to explain that to him...
excalibur crossbows arent cheap junk, they'rehigh quality, top of the line crossbows



I also agree with letting him get what he wants for accessories, for a guy picking and choosing what you wantfor it ishalf the fun and comes from personal prefference thats hard for anyone else to judge

the only thing I'd suggest is that you could pick up a scope mount for it, thats something thats a pretty standard accessory and unless he choses the stock pins for sights(which is pretty unlikely) its something that will be needed and usually has to be ordered so getting one ahead of time would probably be a good idea, then he can play around with different scopes without having to wait for the needed mount to arrive