I'd steer clear of the 5000 series. Alternatively, I would recommend a Catalyst 4006 bundle and a 4232-L3 module (IP and IPX Routing, 2 Gigabit router interfaces, 2 Gigabit trunk to backplane, and 32 10/100 ports). Plus the switch fabric is 24Gbps compared to the 1.2Gbps/3.6Gbps of the 5000 series. This would probably be cheaper than the 5500 as well. If you need to support topologies other than ethernet, you'll need the 5000s.
