I like the looks of those Fusti cans Tubercle - thanks for the pointer. The 30L one weighs 3.7 kilos, so they probably are thinner than the ole Iowa milk containers but should work fine for fermenting.
Here's a link to one with dimensions closer to the home brew bucket size:
http://www.oliveoilsource.com/content/stainless-steel-fusti-spigot-30-literHefty markup for that SS spigot.
Read somewhere that these things take different threads than our typical NPT threads, so a conversion piece is necessary, less than ten bucks.
Now, about that 155$ price... well I take a trip to Italy every 2 or 3 years, will have to see what the local prices are. And maybe some day the dollar will get off its back. Otherwise, I guess I'll plan a trip through some Iowa rural junkyards (a.k.a, my relatives' back yards ;-) sometime to see if any treasures are about!