Well that guy never got back to me and many reiterated their insistance that starting with acoustic was a lot better practice, which is fine anyway since I live in the hipster capitol of central florida and thus have a steady stream of guitars entering the second hand market as people realise "oh my god, this actually takes EFFORT".
I wound up getting a local pawn shop to take the price of an Ibanez Artwood AW-300 from 97 (it was in great condition) down from 250 to 175 after taxes:
And I may well finally have a job which means when/if I'm ready to go electric I can probably afford one without worrying about whether I'm getting either a repainted squier or raped to death by a craigslist psychopath.