would this work - conical w/better top....
 

Cone bottom container from chem-tainer.

comes with a molded cover, and is like $60 shipped to my door

here's the technical drawing
chemical resistance chart which shows a resistence level of A (will resist) to both ethyl alcohol 100% and 38%. also shows that it is resistant to whiskey and vinegar

Specs manual

here's a 5 gallon for $25

It would probably work just fine as a fermentor but would be a very poor substitute for a conical if we're taking about dumping yeast and so on.
Also the capacity is too low for 5 gallon batches...you'd want it to be 6.5 gallons at least.

i totally mis-read the technical drawing. this has no outlet on the bottom.

While you easily could add a dump valve the cone angle is wrong. The standard rule of thumb is 60 degrees.

I wouldn't worry as much about that. 60 degrees comes as much from the fact that it what was readily available to brewer's as anything else

From the same site:
Norwesco 15 Gallon Beer, Wine, Biodiesel Inductor Tank (TN1923IN)

That one looks a lot better. It still looks like you need to put a valve at the bottom though, but it's also a lot cheaper than the other plastic conicals.

EDIT: Just noticed that stand was not included, and is an additional $112. But even at around $175 it doesn't seem to bad of a price.