Hi GoM - I'd say the title of this thread is a little off - not 'annoying' just 'not enough information', hi
It's a normal reaction to think that you're a little overwhelmed. Not to worry - there's lots of folks here that can help. You did the right thing by going to the Mass. forum here, but there's another site that concentrates in Massachusetts and New England; the Scan Cape Cod website run by Scott Halligen. You can get to it from here (anything in blue and/or underlined is a link)
http://www.scancapecod.us/
Register, then go to the appropriate forum to find out what is being used in your area. While there's an extensive wiki on Scan Cape Cod (SCC) that has lots of freqs, they're not downloadable - although there's a forum reserved for that on the SCC website.
Our wiki here on RadioReference has extensive articles (wiki speak for pages) on just about every scanner out there. Once you have made a decision as to what scanner you want to check out, use our wiki to do your homework. We also have an article that has links to basic articles on trunking and a great many other topics. With over 800 articles, there's bound to be something here that can help.
Viewing the wiki is available to everyone. Just click on 'wiki' in the top blue toolbar and you'll be taken to our main article. Most everything in our wiki is indexed through that article.
Take your time; use your local resources to point you in the right direction to make the right purchase. Nothing worse than buying the wrong scanner for the wrong application
73 Mike