I'm a collector of world instruments, and though I don't own a sitar, I see them cheap on ebay. Go for cheap and from some seller with good feedback.
As for learning curve, yes there is one. There's also a tuning curve. Sitars have sympathetic strings that all have to be tuned like the playing strings. If you're after a plucky string instrument with a nice 'ethnic' sound you might try finding a music store that sells that kind of thing and try some stuff out. There are cool african banjo-like things that are cool. There are also other, simpler folk instruments from India and near there that have sound and playablity you may prefer over a big sitar. Oh, one other choice is there is this guy who makes small, custom type sitars over on maui i think it is. A friend of mine has one of them, it's backpack-able and sounds and plays like a real sitar for the most part. They aren't too cheap, but might be worth checking out.