I just hadda follow up on this one (and get all weepy because S8-N ain't here right now). I decided to take his and Emeric's advice and spring for a full-sized kit (dmas, I appreciate your pointer as well).
This was partly based on the fact that I gotten my older son a nice kid-sized guitar, which he played for about 4 days before giving up. Now I have a mini-Ovation that I can't even really play, so it's a total loss unless I can sell it or something. This way, at worst I'd have something to mess with myself, though I can't actually play drums worth a bean.
So I decided to go for a fairly cheap set of full-sized drums. I prowled every online source and offline catalog and then remembered I had bought my Strat from Sam Ash when I had been on the East Coast awhile back. I found this little gem there:
http://www.intersolutions.net/samash2/displayprod.cfm?sstring=%25groove%20percussion&id=2352&r=0.46884818
It's a step up from the cheapest they had, with double-braced hardware and stuff...I don't think you're going to find a full set with cymbals anywhere else for $350! It came with two spare lugs, and sure enough, I ended up with two broken lugs when all was said and done. The pedals aren't great but we can live with them, the rest seems pretty good except the crappy pot-metal lugs. I'll have to take a picture of a happy Steven barely peeping over the top of all this stuff and post it.
The best part is that Sam Ash still doesn't quite have their act together as far as figuring shipping costs...they charged me a whole $12.95 to ship the two huge-ass boxes of drums from Florida to California! So if you're looking for a starter set, check this out!