Yes I think the playset is worth every penny. Swings, slide, climing wall, ours has a little hut at the top too...her "fort". You don't have to get all the add-ons at once, you could just go with swing and slide portion, and add more pieces as time goes on.
DD's sand table was a great investment, she still plays with it. We have seashells in there and blue stones (the kind you put in the bottom of a vase) for her to dig up!
And another great thing we got was a red wagon....and again, she still uses it. Puts dolls in it, rocks, takes rides in it...helps daddy clean up the yard...it's adorable. Before we got her sand table, we actually filled the wagon with a bag of sand and it was a mobile sand table! IMO, a sand table that they stand up at is sooo much better than a sandbox that they sit in. I have a freiend whose lo has a sandbox but they have it filled with pea gravel and it's sooo much better as far as clean up!
Also, can't go wrong with kid-sized table and chairs. We got ours at a big-box home store and it is so great to have a snack outside, which we do almost every day in summer!