Hemigrammus erythrozonus is quite commonly available over here and I've always found them very hardy (although I tend to run my tank fairly hot as I have always in the past kept things like red tailed black sharks) and I even had them breed although I only managed to keep 1 youngster. I had 1 old female that outlived several schools of her mates and ended up twice as large as any of the others and so heavy in the body that her spine twisted slightly (I called her Bendy, you can see her in the background of the blurry pic with a hollow belly not long after having spawned with 2 other females more in the foreground), but they don't take care of the eggs.
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I try to keep the schooling fish in groups, with the numbers in each varying between around 8 and 15, but at the moment I am overrun with the Kribensis cichlids and have dropped below that in most of the small shoals, I just daren't put in more though until I can rehome the excess cichlid population. The nice thing about having the larger tank is that I can have the large groups and still have lots of different fish. The depth of the tank also allows them to find their preferred level in the water, something that was not so obvious when I had a shallower tank.
My tank is big enough for the Malawi cichlids, but obviously not with the other fish in there, and having had smaller tanks in the past and knowing how much more difficult they are to get balanced and maintain I don't particularly want to go back to a smaller tank. If I did though I would put the cichlids in the large tank and keep the smaller one for mixed fish.
I know exactly what you mean about a great fish, it take more than just colouration, and I think that is what I particularly like about cichlids, they are so much more focussed in what they do and there is more purpose behind their behaviour rather than just aimless swimming about.