The 18SZ is in the same case as the 14SG so it's a little smaller than the 18MZ's and a chunk smaller than the DX18. I still have one of those but rarely use it as it's just too big for my hands. I cannot get to the switches without dragging the sticks. I keep my DX18 as it is a QQ and I figure why not? The DX20 is pretty much the same size as the 18SZ and the 12X but as much as I made fun of the leather grips, they really are quite nice. Switch layout is good and I don't have any problem reaching the switches. The gimbals are all metal and pretty nice, but not quite as good as the Futaba. As one member mentioned in another thread here; right now the Futaba stuff is spendy as they added 25% to the pricing saying it was the tariffs put on Chinese imports. If that was/is such an issue I don't understand why we've not seen similar increases on the other radios. Futaba was already expensive due to Hobbico's pricing being about 50% more than the rest of the world and when Hobbico went Bankrupt we all hoped that when Futaba took over the importing/distributing/service for the USA, that the prices would come down to something closer to what they sell for around the world but it didn't happen and then they added the 25% on top of that.
Programming; You're talking two different primary ways of organizing the computer logic for these radios. It's not as bad as it was, but when I went from a Futaba 9Z to a JR 9303, I could have just screamed at the difficulties I had picking that up. So the programming on the 18SZ is pretty easy even compared to the 18MZ but they've still got some funny names for functions like flaps are called "camber" which is a glider term. I'd say the DX20 is probably one of the easiest to program radios I've ever owned, it's quite intuitive.
So from a price standpoint, switch over to Futaba would cost you quite a bit of money. As for the Jeti? They are really heavy, they look and feel like an aluminum pizza box including all the square straight edges of the case and they're not cheap either.
May I suggest that you take a look at this thread, it's got quite a bit of information about various radio options and how they work.
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-r...ears-awol.html