Bulova Lunar Pilot (black or silver version) can be found for under $500 if you wait for the right sale.
Seiko is king when it comes to under $500 watches, although Citizen makes stuff just as good but with less fanfare.
There's also Orient if you want to get a bit different.
You can get some Hamilton watches for under $500 but it depends, and some of them might be mechanical vs automatics...if that matters to you.
I wouldn't turn my nose up at Casio though. Sometimes you just wait a beater watch for certain things and they're easy to grab in the summer.
A lot of websites talk about the Timex Weekender watch every year as a summer staple. It's classic, simple and cheap. I think they're under $40. But they're small and not my particular taste.
For me, under $500 I'm mostly leaning Seiko. But you can get anything you like. You don't really start seeing a noticeable difference in quality until you get into the $1,000 mark.