jgg, not in the circles that I hang around in. A secondary is seen as one more way to filter the beer before it will be bottled and my local brew store still teaches this method to beginners.

I use the 1-2-3 method. One week in the bucket, two weeks in the carboy, and three weeks in the bottles. If it is a rather high gravity beer, I'll give it twice the amount of time in the bottles.

I just brewed an Imperial Nut Brown night before last. It started bubbling yesterday afternoon. All that 5 gallons requires is a brewing bucket (carboy if you are going to do secondary fermentation), a big brewing stainless steel pot, a thermometer and of course the beer bottles and caps. For me, the brewing bucket stays in the bathroom and then I have 2 cases of beer bottles stacked on top of each other. Not much room.

You most definitely can make your own beer at home. I've been doing so for years.
#1. See if you can find any local brew supply stores. I have one about 4 miles from where I live, so I'm lucky. Otherwise, the great thing about the internet is that you can buy all of your supplies online. I started for about $150 and that included all of the supplies and the beer kit. You will typically be making around 40-50 bottles at a time when you are making your own beer.

Pretty much what you will need is the following:
Drinking water (usually about 5 gallons)
Pot to boil the ingredients (around 20 quarts)
Plastic bucket that seals well and has a hole in it for an airlock
Airlock
Carboy
Auto Siphon
Large mixing spoon
Bottles. About 48-55 is a good start but do not buy the screw top kind. Brown are best.
Caps for bottles
Sanitizer (some use bleach but I prefer C-Brite or B-Brite.
Hydrometer
Beer kit.

Without going into too much detail, the beer kit will give you all the instructions you will need. Of course with anything, there are beginner kits, intermediate kits, and at some point if you really gets into this, you can buy individual ingredients either at your beer supply store or off the internet.. If you started today, you could be drinking your first homemade beer in about one month. I could layout all the particulars of how I make my own beer at home but instead, I'd recommend that you check out this website for more details... http://howtomakeyourownbeerathome.info/