If you were a neophyte collector considering these brands, which would be your top pick?

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Seiko and Hamilton are two additional watches I would consider. 
 

My thoughts on those four brands:

Citizen makes very good watches. They are mostly quartz. I’m not familiar with their automatics. 
 

Orient is great bang for buck. Their dress and dive watches are very good. 
 

Some of the Timex field models seem like great deals. I had a Marlin and it felt cheap. 
 

Tissot has very good history and is Swiss. My PRX is remarkable good quality for the price point. 

They’re all great brands I voted for Tissot, but really it depends on what you’re after. If you want a mechanical diver go for the Orient Kamasu, a cheap field, than Timex Expedition, a good solar look no further than Citizen’s ecodrive and go for Tissot if you want affordable Swiss engineering. 

Seiko / Grand Seiko were also on my list, but the poll was limited to 4 options, so I cut a few options off. Originally, my list was:

Casio
Citizen
Orient / Orient-Star
Seiko / Grand Seiko
Stuhrling
Timex
Tissot

Grand Seiko is in a different ballpark. 

What is the entry price range for Grand Seiko? Is it under 1k? Or above?

If there was Seiko it'd have been game over. Seiko is a system not a brand, it's so vast and diverse. 

Nevermind, just answered my own question! 😂 Wow, $2,200 for entry level? ::whistles:: Ok, I'm gonna stick to "regular" Seiko for now, lol 😎

The four brands are excellent, the choice depends on the amount you want to spend to start and the style watch you like, dress, diver, chrono, etc.

For a dress watch I would go to Orient Bambino, Diver watch with Citizen, Field Watch with Timex expedition, and Tissot you could get a chrono or the PRX. But there are another excellent brands as well like Casio, Seiko, Hamilton.

Yeah, my original list was longer, but the poll limited me to only 4 choices. Yesterday, seeing that the poll was clearly favoring Tissot, I started browsing their collection, and found a Pepsi diver that I am absolutely in love with. I will soon be putting aside the funds to acquire it. Screenshot below:
(I edited out all the price nonsense. I only left the pic and the specs.)
 

I am also interested in Casio, Seiko, and Hamilton, as you suggested. I already have two Casios in my Amazon cart under "save for later"; I am buying a pair, so that I can give one to my son, and do the whole "father-and-son-matching-watches" thing 😀 I've heard a lot about Orient Bambinos, so it is definitely on my radar. 😎

Beautiful watch, Pepsi is colour I would like to have as well. But be careful with the size of the case in relation to the wrist, I've already made a lot of mistakes with that. Also see what style of watch you like and also if you prefer automatic or quartz. Take it slow, enjoy the journey, watch a lot YouTube reviews about watch types before buying a new watch. Buying a new watch without doing a lot of research and analysing the styles in depth is another mistake that I also made a lot, but that I learned over time.

Orient- The best value for money mechanical watches right now. You can find great mechanical watches for $250 and under. Dress watches like Bambino & Maestro, dive watches like Kamasu, Kano and Mako. Lot other great designs. Seiko 5 along with Orient is the go to if you want an entry level mechanical watch for around $200. And you can about exploring the vast Seiko lineup which goes all the way from $200 to $5000 (not including Grand Seiko).

Citizen- Probably the best solar quartz manufacturer along with Casio. They make nice solar quartz dress watches and good tool watches in their Promaster line. 

Timex- Got some great quartz watches with nice designs. Waterbury, Q-series, Marlin and Expedition lineups are the good ones from Timex.

Tissot- Best entry level Swiss brand. Can't go wrong with their offerings. The good lineups from the brand are Le Locle, Gentleman, Visodate and the ever present PRX.

The Seastar lineup is quite huge and chunky watches. And the quartz movement in them is not really worth the $600 price. If you are going for a watch with Pepsi bezel similar to Tissot you chose, the Seiko SSC913 is a better option for the same price and it comes with a solar quartz movement.  

If its is possible, always try on the watch in person, especially if you are looking into watches above 40-42mm. Each watch case wears different and can feel different on your wrist so its always nice to get an idea.