Sounds as though there are three choices then: let small indie movies have horrible sound and be unwatchable, never make any indie movies at all, or share some experience and ideas for what CAN be done so that movies as a whole can get better.
As I stated at the end of my post, "I'm not saying that quality sound cannot be achieved on a budget... But it requires a great deal of discipline and an awareness of limitations."
It has been my experience that 99% of beginning filmmakers don't have the discipline or even the desire to do anything about sound. Bravo for you if you do!
There have been numerous discussions here at IndieTalk and on other filmmaker forums about budget sound gear and how to use it. You can start with my blogs. Another wonderful resource is FilmSound.org. Don't ignore the history articles and the ones written by Randy Thom and Walter Murch, they are just as, if not more, important than the technical and how-to articles. There are also some excellent articles on the Equipment Emporium site. Then there are forums for production sound and audio post professionals such as the Google production sound forum, JWSound.net, and the Sound Article List and Sound Design forums on Yahoo!. Lurk there for a while and go through their archives. There's also quite a bit of stuff on YouTube.
Then there are excellent books:
Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music Voice and Sound Effects In Cinema - David Sonnenschein
(Focuses more on the artistic side)
The Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound - David Yewdall
(A little dated but excellent, leaning more towards the technical side)
The Foley Grail - Vanessa Ament
(A great read and the DVD is very interesting. Vanessa is a regular contributor to the Sound Article List and Sound Design forums on Yahoo!)
The Sound Effects Bible - Ric Viers
(Ric is a another contributor to the Yahoo! forums. You can also check out his web site.)
There are many more out there, but these are a good place to start. BTW, when I started out in audio post I found most of this via Google. As for your budget, $1,000 is about right for budget production sound equipment; you can probably save a few bucks buying used gear. There's no sense in buying junk which will frustrate you more than help you.