Congrats on joining the turbo world! you'll love it =) No idea about that yellow thing. But looking where a boost Tee would normally be installed it appears it has been removed and just replaced with a corner joiner.? (just down + left of the afm.) Does that hose go from the intercooler piping to the wastegate actuator? what boost is it running? also looks like there's a bit of unusual blue piping around, but i have seen many different ways of things being hooked up. I definitely think this has had a lot of playing around done to it. As for 'is it a good place to start?' That kinda depends how far you want to go. By the sounds of it you will do quite a bit so anything really will be ok as you will gradually replace everything anyway. Just be prepared to spend hours and hours using the advanced search of this forum and reading hundreds of pages of threads. Everything you need to know is here somewhere =)
I have been considering buying something with a bit more space lately, you have just convinced me to consider a ute, have never really had any interest in them until now........