I agree... people tend to have this strange mentality that music lessons are just hours of mozart and other boring classical stuff, but that's not always true. However I think that you should always work on the harder (eg. classical and jazz) stuff during lessons, because that's the area where you'd need help from your teacher, etc. Then at home on your own you're free to play whatever you want. And piano lessons are extremely useful if you ever want to pick up other instruments- makes everything so much easier!
One thing I don't like about the piano, though is that it's too much of a 'solo' instrument. You hardly get the chance to play with other people, except for the occasional duet. Which is partly why I ended up learning the violin as well... and it's so much more fun (chamber music is sooo... good)! Cello is next on the list.
