Lens choice?

I have about a $400 budget I can use to buy a new lens or put towards a more expensive one (but patience isn't my strongest attribute ). You can see my gear list in my signature. I am mainly interested in outdoor portrait work (no studio). I recently purchased the Nikon 50mm 1.8G, kept it for about a week, and then returned it. It didn't wow me. It was fine, but not WOW. I purchased the 50mm 1.4D this week (came yesterday) and again, I'm not in love. It will probably ship back Monday.

I love my 85 1.8G! But sometimes I think about going bit wider. That's why I tried the 50mm. But it wasn't all that.

Ideally, I'd love to have all my bases covered but that has to happen a little at a time. I've looked at the FX 35mm f/2 also but I'm hesitant because I don't know if that's the right direction to go in. Should I be looking at longer lengths instead?

I'm trying to figure out which focal length would be my best next purchase for the purpose of portraits. Help?

What didn't wow you about the 50mm lenses? It would seem that if you need to go wider than your 85mm then 50mm would be the first place to go to. If the 50mm wasn't wide enough then yes 35mm is the next logical choice. If your problem with the 50mm lenses was based on lack of separation from the background through controlling DoF, well the 35mm f/2 is going to give you even less of that than either of the 50mm options you tried. Only after I have written this do I see that you already have a 35mm f/1.8 lens, so I don't see why you would want to change it for an f/2 version? I could maybe see the benefit of going from a 35mm f/2 to a 35mm f/1.4, but not to a slower lens.

Alan