We added Dye Sub to our shop about 3 years ago.
It was pretty painless as learning curve goes since we already do other printing so was a natural progression.
We run Airtinium inks through a Epson 1280 as I wanted the 6 color printer and didn't want to drop 2k at the time for the 4000.
Then added the C88 at christmas as we had a huge mug order and the printer broke after about 1000 sheets of tru-pix.
The 1280 system is a good entry level system but if you have the money I would go with one of the larger printers. We are currently looking at the Epson 9600 wide format 44 inch.
We purchased the Geo Knight Combo Press which is a nice swing press but a pain in the rear if you have tiles and mugs at the same time as you have to switch stuff out. If you really want many mugs get a dedicated mug press. (which we will do this summer)
Our main specialty for our dye sub is tile murals. (I might dump doing everything else except murals and mugs as my wife likes doing them.)
If you want to focus on Tiles and the such I would recommend that you get a good swing press as it is much easier to swing the top out of the way to line up the tiles. We can press up to 12x18 at a time but still takes awhile as our average mural size 4'x8'..
Looking at some larger presses but they get up there in price.
A good company to get enetry level Equipment is.
http://www.dyesubinks.com/
Great guy to talk to about Dye sub.