Tremayne,
You sound like someone who has almost made up his mind, and just wants a little push to go and get GT5.
But you also state you are "on a budget", so I feel I should warn you given it would also involve purchasing a PS3.
Firstly do not buy an old style PS3 second hand.
The original "fatty" PS3's are notorious for issues, so much so that many of second hand machines are borderline failures that have been traded in for the much more reliable slim model.
I know, I've had 4 original 60GB PS3's fail on me myself, and eventually when number 5 showed difficulty with the Blueray player, traded it in for a slim model.
Secondly, I have always found games a very personal thing.
It doesn't matter how much someone recommends a game to me, how much the game seems to offer or what the reviews have been.
Until I actually try it myself and find if it really is my kind of game, I take all comments on a game as only how someone else finds it.
Therefore my best advice would be to seek out a friend who has a PS3, and if he doesn't have GT5 see if you can rent it.
By the way, I don't know how much GT5 is your side of the world, but over here it has dropped in some outlets to less then £20, so if you can't rent it, you might still be able to get it reasonably cheap to try out.
Having said all that, I have to say for me it is a game/racing simulator I personaly like.
The low end "street cars" especially, so much in fact I tend to try and collect two of each, one to modify and the other to keep as standard.
Whatever the outcome Tremayne, let us know here sometime what you decided to do...