I'm a little late to this party, but here are my thoughts on this. I have a cheap electronic drumset, and great sampled kits on my computer. I've never even used the sounds that come with the drumset. The cons: While my set is velocity sensitive, it's not that great at it. And it misses some triggers, mainly on the cymbals and when I use the hi hat pedal. So I usually have to edit my drum parts for velocity and missed triggers. I REALLY hate editing MIDI. The upside is that, even after editing, my drum parts sound human, because they are. As much as I hate editing MIDI, programming parts from scratch was even worse. And even though my kit isn't as sensitive as I'd like it to be, and the sticks don't bounce off the pads like real drum heads, it's still a blast to play. Especially when I can dial up a John Bonham kit, a Clyde Stubblefield kit, and many others.
If you wanted to become a serious drummer, of course a real kit would be necessary. I learned on real drums, with some great drummers to teach me rudiments. I'm not at a level that I could play in a band, because I haven't played enough to have the consistent muscle control to last for a whole show. But I can do what I need to record, or jam with people for a couple of songs. As you said, learning more instruments helps with guitar or whatever your main instrument is. When I was learning how to sing and play guitar at the same time when I was a teenager, I used a book called Independence for the Modern Drummer. It was for learning to play different rhythms simultaneously with different limbs. I would strum a chord to one of the rhythms, and sing a random sound to another rhythm. It worked, and quickly. And when I strum a guitar, I kind of think of my right hand as performing the function of a hi hat. My hand never stops the back and forth motion of eighth or sixteenth notes (whatever the groove is) whether I'm hitting the strings or not. Of course that's a basic rhythm guitar concept, but since at the time I figured that out as a kid I was also learning the basics of drumming, the two kind of fit together and helped me understand.
Sorry if I'm rambling. It's been a long night of mixing, and I'm about to pass out. Long story short, I would recommend getting a MIDI kit. It'll be fun to practice on, won't be loud, and it'll help you with recording.