from my experience, like any other hobby/obsession, brewing can be as involved and expensive or as simple and cheap as the brewer wants it to be. I for one, love gadgets and having "gear" for the hobbies i enjoy; however, one of those hobbies is making stuff as cheaply as possible.
I found a friend throwing out a 12 gallon cooler because the drain plug had broken off, so i used it as my MLT. found a scrap 60 foot copper coil at work, turned it into a 50 ft IC. Scrap steel rollers and some folded sheet metal became my grain mill, Turkey fryer(s) off Craigslist, and one entire setup a guy was selling for $200 provided me with an extra MLT, keggle, IC, turkey fryer, 4 carboys, 4 HDPE primaries, and a big rubbermaid box of goodies... from which i assembled 1 starter kit and sold for $250 on craigslist, then sold a nother carbo and the extra IC to a buddy for some cash. All in all the most expensive thing was the hardware for my 12 gal MLT which ran me $32 bucks. (more than free after selling the random equip from my bulk gear buy)
Now i've purchased about 275lbs of grain for $200, and will be putting 2 more lbs of hops in the freezer w/ the 4 already there.
I'd say all grain has made brewing cheaper for me.... it just took me 6 months of waiting for the prices/deals/etc. to get to this point. Sure i could have gone out and purchased all the stuff from a retailer, but that wasn't the way that was most exciting/enjoyable to me. And, at this point, it was worth not brewing for a few months, because i'll be set to brew for the entire next year on less that 1/3 of what i spent brewing extract last year... and i'll make about twice as much beer.