Cisco Pix 501 for home firewall?

I am thinking about replacing my router with a hardware firewall instead
of just using Zone Alarm. My IT chief tells me my home network would be
much more secure.

I am interested to know how difficult the 501 is to set up and
understand, whether there are licenses that need to be purchsed, do they
need to be purchased each year, and is there any special software that
needs to be purchased? I like the fact that I could set up a VPN with
ny system without having a port open all the time.

Thanks
Ken K