Cassie even has this great VIDEO tutorial on making actions that it is really easy to learn and when you are finished with the tutorial, you have a great set of actions already to be used over and over and over...
There are some great advantages to CS3 that you can't do with elements... warp tool!! and pen tool!! I am planning on picking up Cassie's PS. I Love You tutorial tonight (it's on Thrifty Thursday so I don't have to wait for tomorrow night!) as I would love to learn the pen tool...
If you have the space on your computer since you already have the program, how about installing it and learn it at your pace... play with just learning actions on it first and getting comfortable with the interface changes. It doesn't need to be an all or nothing change over if you have the space. I still have Elements on my computer even though I only use CS3/4 now. It made the transition easier for me. When I had the time to take to learn it, I would. When I was in a hurry and just wanted familiar, I would use Elements. More and more, I stopped reaching for Elements and began just using CS3/4.