lots of choises. When i started, i bought a book that went over the gear and method to get an idea of what it was about. don't spend too much your first round. try Army and Navy for some good low cost gear.

jt.

Yo MGD, check out some of the local tackle shops that cater to flyfishing. they often have "beginner" packages for quite cheap (around 100 bucks and up) they come with rod, flyreel, flyline, backing etc.
or check the buy and sell.........

ya...not sure if its ok to mention tackle shop names here, but my first fly rod came from West Coast Tackle on Hastings in Vancouver. They were friendly and set me up with a 5/6 weight graphite rod with cork handle, dragonfly flyreel, floating line, line backing, and a tippet. also got a little box of trout flies and a card on basic fly fishing knots. whole package came to about 140 with taxes.  

A lot of new casters perfer a slower rod to grove in their casting.  Starting with the higher priced rods, and a faster rod will make learning more difficult as these rods are less forgiving of any mistakes you make.  

I love the rio multi-tip line though....a good compromise for the beginner who wishes to fish a number of different conditions with just one rod and reel.  Learning to cast these multi tip lines however is a little bit more difficult than a line dedicated to one situation.  I found learning on a weight forward floating line easiest.

Ok now that you have got the good advice so far, so can we can narrow it down a bit? What kind of rivers do you plan to fish?? If you mainly want to fish sloughs and Fraser back waters, then a 6wt would be just fine. (except for springs)  If you plan on heavier flows like say the upper Chilliwack/Vedder or the Chehalis, then perhaps an 8wt would serve your purposes. Do you plan to fish more for summer or winter steel head? The summers would be more easily fished with a floating line either with weighted or waking flies.
It's pretty easy to look at all the advice you have and get a bit bewildered. If you could tell us more about when, where, you want to fish, then our fine posters can steer you in the right direction.
For rods that are premium at a good price, I suggest the Scott brand. My pal Budvar fishes an 8wt with a lifetime warranty with the BFR 675 and has little trouble fishing the Stave River chum run.
He does have a little envy however when he watches me using 9'6" 8wt Sage with a Lamson 3.5 but I digress....  
As for line I suggest a 328 grain sink tip for fast waters. The tip comes 22' long but I reccomend cutting about 4' off that for fishing our rivers. To chuck a line like this one you need arod with good backbone like a Fenwick, Sage, Scott 8wt........
Fenwick by the way has some really nice rods that are reasonably priced as well.
The Rio tip is a great all round set up but a hinged line is tough to hand a guy who is just starting out casting.  
I suggest getting this as a second choice. For slower waters I am a huge advocate of the Stillwater line and for faster/deeper waters a heavey sink tip. They will let you know when the rod is loading, be less hard on the eyes of your rod.

Flooney