My Fat Vita is second hand, with 3.57 firmware version when I got it. Got interested on Vitas when all the scene got alive, then I manually updated it to 3.60, have a 4GB Sony card, 5 games on it (all from indie devs, as most "official" one's really suck; and so, I understand why the Vita failed miserably), Adrenaline and Henkaku r10 working great. I'm planning to use it mainly for emulation (I love "oldie" 2D games).
Cost: About $80 USD. It was a good price then. Nowadays I see many at about $100 USD, and sometimes at $50 USD, but not on a "friendly" firmware version.
If the opportunity comes, I might buy a Slim, but I'd like a blue one (my favorite colour), saldy those are, IMO, overpriced. I'm not willing to pay $200/$250 USD for one, even less one with an "unfriendly" firmware version.