Last winter MEC was selling Rossignol Asian-made copies of Italian leather XC boots, with the 3-pin Nordic Norm toe. They were as cheap as used Italian-made leather boots. If you use eBay, there are always leather XC boots available on it.

Depending on what you're planning to do, and if you can find and pay a fortune for them, Scarpa T4's might be a good choice. Hard to find them used. It's easier and far cheaper to find original used T3's, which were brownish purple and have the same low/flexible shell as the T4's.