Hey glnz,
it's not only all about VBox, what you are getting into is a complex subject. It has to do with OS's, file systems, software and hardware virtualization, third party tools and the list goes on. I spent hours a day for ca. 3 weeks just reading documentation and (re)searching before I installed and started using VBox. In my opinion, you won't get as much out of VBox until you have at least a basic understanding of all elements involved. I can't speak for Oracle but I don't think they will favor a certain third party tool such as Ghost in lieu of other similar tools. It wouldn't be a good idea. VBox the way it is already gives the user an enormous amount of flexibility and capabilities, which can be implemented according to the user's specific needs.
Also, there is much to be learned by making mistakes. You will understand a solution that you came up with yourself far better than just implementing a solution that works but without knowing why. Just make sure you practice basic principles such as backing up data before attempting something new and you will be on the safe side. I prefer
clonezilla for backups; create an image, do something, if one screws up, restore the image and everything is as it was before the fatal error. By the way, your next weekend won't be ruined irrelevant of the outcome. You will definitely have learned something and that is something that no one can take away from you.
Go for it! And enjoy your weekend.
P.S. I converted my laptop installation to a VDI so I could compare performance between host and guest using a known entity. (I knew how my host performed and differences in performance of the cloned OS were immediately evident.) I don't have it anymore as it was only for initial testing purposes. If you can read German, you will find the steps I performed
here. (I didn't bother writing it up in English, because all the information contained therein is already available on this forum.) By the way, if you have installation CDs /DVDs, it makes working with VBox much easier.