Setting up a server, tips would be lovely

For grief prevention, i would use coreprotect for grief protection. Personally its my favorite. http://dev.bukkit.org/server-mods/coreprotect/

Also, you'll want some basic plugins (these go in the plugins folder), such as Essentials, PermissionsEx (or another permissions manager), and Factions or Grief Prevention depending on how you want your server to work -- the former being primarily used in raiding and griefing servers.
Make sure you get all your plugins from bukkit.org!

Well, i truly love owning a server, because it teaches me many things. I personally would on a 1gb server. Also being an admin on a server also could teach you many things as well. I would go for both. I would buy a 1gb server, and be an admin. Then as an admin, ask the owner what plugins he uses, and install it on your own server. Then learn how it works and how you can configure it yourself.

Hi, you should make a bukkit server. You should employ about 5-10 staff. Make sure the staff are from different parts of the world, so that there is at least 1 staff member on at all times. The cost varies. My server costs about 10 dollars, but itball depends on the amount of people/ram u need. A good hostbit exodushosting.net. there are lots of people on PMC who can help out. One helpful person is Rogue.