Care to elaborate a bit about what you have in mind wrt "hobbyist" measurement purposes?
A good standalone RF spectrum analyzer, or even better, a network analyzer is an extremely powerful and versatile tool. IMHO, for a (audio) circuit designer, today a RF analyzer is way more necessary and effective than a standalone audio analyzer (to 100kHz or so). With today's audio interfaces and great software like REW it is far more convenient to use a dedicated older laptop + soundcard and this close to a bare-bone hardware solution (many of which internally are a beefed-up PC running Embedded Windows anyway).
If you are really going to do to make RF measurements, be prepared that you will most certainly need some probes (notably a current clamp -- which can be DIY'ed successfully btw). And impedance-matching adapters, attenuators, an assortment of good cables, etc.
But basically, doing meaningful experiments and measurements is possible for most anyone and the learning curve is probably easier with modern tools/gear.
As very inspiring resource I can recommend Doug C. Smith's website
http://www.emcesd.com/ , notably the Technical Tidbits section.