Mike: For what it may be worth, let me give you my experience with a Celestron 8-inch SCT, but please also note that I am an elderly fellow whose vision, once very acute, is no longer what it was when I was young. In mediocre skies, with urban light pollution, etc., all galaxies that I can see are nothing but fuzzy smears. On my occasional outings to good dark sky sites (Mt.Pinos or the California desert), I can see many more galaxies and I can readily see their shapes (round for face-on spirals, cigar-shaped for M82 and various edge-on spirals, oval for M81 and other spirals tilted to our line of sight and most ellipticals); but only very rarely have I seen such structural details as the spiral arms in M51 or the dust lane in M104 (the Sombrero), and then only in the most prominent of these galaxies, like those I've mentioned, never in the vast majority of galaxies which are rated magnitude 10 or dimmer.
NexStar 8i SCT, Orion 80ED APO refractor, Orion 120 mm EQ refractor, 3.5-inch Questar
