Buying Production-quality Switch

For learning purposes, I'd like to purchase a switch to network at least 4 servers. Based on your knowledge of switches and the ones you currently use in production, could you recommend some switches that, while initially for development use, could be transitioned to production?

I'd like a switch that specifically isn't meant for home use, because a big part of the reason for purchasing it is to get experience configuring, using, and troubleshooting a production-quality switch that has anywhere from 8-32 ports.

For those of you that actually network 32 devices together in production, do you have one mega 32-port switch, or multiple smaller (e.g. 8-port) switches? What setup, in your experience, have you determined to be ideal?

What criteria are very important to consider when purchasing a switch that, as a newbie to this area, I may not have otherwise considered? Most resources on this topic give pretty basic information, but don't highlight the real 'gotcha' areas.