I second Big kahunas advice re modding recipes. take a kit that's worked well for you, and start tweaking it. keep records of what you like with each iteration, and keep records of the actual ingredients in the kits, so you can buy them individually. Most of my recipes originated from kits, and now that I'm on the 5-7th version of most of them, I can honestly think of them as my own
as for partial mash, don't discount that as a good intermediate step before AG. Partial mash is barely harder than extract with specialty grains. Since you're still using extract, you don't have to worry about efficiency too much, so you can mash in your brew pot using a large grain bag and sparge with the grain bag and a collander. No need to build a mash / lauter tun or any of that. you'll have more flexibility in your recipes, compared to extract with specialty grains.
And buying a propane burner with a kettle large enough to do full boils is an excellent suggestion also.