Hey Chaz, I get this feeling that you'd be rather disappointed with a 2.5RS. One of my very best friends has a 2001 RS and while it is a very nice car, with very nice comforts, it's also very expensive and very slow. He paid 12,500 for the '01 2 years ago when the car had 15k miles on the clock, and a salvage title. I know that they've gone down in price considerably, but the money it takes to buy one isn't anything to be sneezed at. The car will run 17.9's all day at bandimere, which is stock plus a Cobb Intake (woohoo). I realize how much is needed with your car, but I assure you that nothing will be more rewarding to you than when it all falls into place.
With that said, I would like to say that when I bought my alltrac, it had 137k miles on the clock, which isn't exactly a small amount, and I knew for a fact that the PO had driven the hell out of the car. He did his maintainance however, and I realized that he did take care of the car, such as resealing and repainting the car the second he took posession. When he got the car, it was leaking oil everywhere, and the paint looked like it had been driven through a barbed wire fence. The car served me very well, running a 15.7 on the stock 141k mile turbo, and once I got the T04E fitted in there, a 15.0. Unfortunately, the stock cap and rotor and wires (im not sure which exactly) decided that they'd had enough, and finally needed to be replaced. Then the car ran so strong that it annihilated the clutch, which had roughly 80k on it.
Aside from the clutch going bad, and the ignition pieces frying, my alltrac has never been what I would consider "unreliable." There are so many other cars that are far worse off reliability wise compared to the alltrac. It is a toyota, after all.
Any car is gonna be unfamiliar to you when you first get it, thats the way things are. All you can do is read up everywhere you can- the big green book, the fantastic internet, and just hanging out at the toyota dealership. Honestly, do you want to own a car and never work on it yourself?
Before making your decision, take a long hard look at what you already own, and what it'll be when it gets into what you consider Ideal. This is your chance to learn more about the car, or cars in general. If you can work on the alltrac with the engine still in the bay, you can work on anything short of a 3000gt. This is your chance to have the satisfaction of completing a project, and once it's all done, the experience will never be forgotten.