Any information you get from an obviously biased reply should be discarded... (I fly JR and Spek, but I started out with Futaba)

There are many good radio systems, Futaba, Spektrum, JR, HiTec Aurora, (and I am sure many more name brands) and there are a heck of a lot of radios coming in from china... some very good stuff out there, if you are willing to investigate.

The thing is that once you make a decision, you will be flying it and buying matching receivers for quite a while... at that point changing brands is difficult and costly...

The only thing that I see that I like about Futaba is the flexibility of being able to assign functions from one place to another. With that ability comes a bit of complexity..

A radio is NOT a lifetime decision, you will likely be changing in 3 or 4 years because of the increase in features. The radio market is preparing to really change again with the telemetry features.

If I were buying a radio today, I would look closely at the DX8 and the Hitec Aurora 9 channel... both have telemetry built in now.

I like the ease of programming my Dx6is (2) and my JR 9303... I do not especially like the DX7 programming, but you can get used to it.

I like the programming of several of the Futaba radios that I have experimented with.