I have a big desk which my monitor sits on, On that desk is a also a 16U rack with my sampler,amp, compressor, FX and rackmount synth, and theres room for my PC keyboard and my zip drive and also my CD player which is connected to my sampler via a group out on the mixer. Above this I have a wide shelf which seats my monitors. I also have a small table for my mixer at the end of this desk. Its all quite comfortable and close, I also have a keyboard stand for my KB. (the rack cost £40 from studio spares, the desk £40 and the keyboard stand £30).

As for the learning curve this is true that it can be steep, which is why I think to purchase 2 synths would be more than enough, a samplers sttraightforward enough to learn as is a mixer. The way I looked at it was what would happen to the money of I left it in my bank account?(I would spend it on going out, records etc) so I wuld rather buy whay I intended the loan for.

Setting the gear up is fairly straight forward as well although you will also have to allow for leads which may work out to cost more than you would expect!