Hi,
As you consider "gearing up" and ponder the myriad offerings from outdoors manufacturers, and you read other peoples gear lists, you have to ask yourself some basic questions before your money burns a hole in your pocket.

How will you use the gear?
Where will you use the gear?
What season ya gonna be going?
Gonna be in mountainous terrain?

Anyway just an aside: my basic gear is all extreme mountaineering based and can serve me as well at altitude in a storm or backpacking in the summer, but it was way expensive and now most of it is irreplaceable. I do camp in all seasons and at altitude and I ski and I climb and my life can depend on something like a zipper failure on a jacket or a torn jacket or pants (bibs).

You don't get good, light and cheap. You have to choose depending on your own expected usage. Ultralite may be totally adequate for you and your problems may be more based on condensation than of staying warm. The gear that you buy has to be TUNED to your usage. This is really hard to do without a lot of experience, and this is why we say buy your pack last because you won't know at first what you will be needing later.

The boy scouts frown on down because it takes skill to wear down and kep it dry. On the other hand, almost all of my insulated gear is down. Some of you would find down gear totally worthless where you camp. The reason I say this is because if you buy the gear on someone elses list because it seemed cool at the time and later find that it doesn't meet your needs, you will spend a second fortune on new gear.

Don't assume that you need something because "everyone has one". A lot of camping gear is just fad and fashion. Like will you hammock or sleep on the ground? Frankly I have found that hammockers do it largely because they find sleeping on the ground to be icky and animalian. They also like to sit in their clean hammocks rather than on good dirty rocks. I'm just not certain about the moral character of hammockers at all
Or perhaps you are one of the millions of happy ground sleepers. People who feal the Earths energy when they lay on the ground in their tents.

Avoid "picking up a few items", you will waste your money before you buy the needed items. Do not go out and buy a knife, gun, pack, sleeping bag, or cooking gear as spontaneous purchases. An as far as money goes, thats gonna have a great affect on what you take. I've gone on a couple hundred mile hike with an old flannel sleeping bag and no coat. I had a ground cloth that I got under when it rained and I cooked beans over a campfire. Point being that camping is experience based not gear based. Your gear is just your "tool kit".
Jim
***I'm just teasing those poor misguided hammockers, they mean no harm, bless their hearts.*** There are places near me where I have to hammock or shred a tent...